Speaker 1: I stand strong in my contention that if you hate
Speaker 1: yourself into change, then you're just going to get a
Speaker 1: future moment that's held together by the thread of hate
Speaker 1: and doesn't have much range for you to exist outside
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 2: Today, I have the great pleasure of chatting with Corey
Speaker 2: Muscara on the podcast. Corey is a teacher, writer, keynote speaker,
Speaker 2: former monk, and author of the book Stop Missing Your Life.
Speaker 2: Corey is also a personal friend and spiritual guide of mine.
Speaker 2: I have found his teaching is incredibly helpful in my
Speaker 2: own self actualization journey. We had a great discussion and
Speaker 2: even gentle debate about topics of mutual interest, such as
Speaker 2: whether there is a true self, the value of self connection,
Speaker 2: and the role of mindfulness in the self actualization journey.
Speaker 2: This was a truly rich conversation with lots of insights
Speaker 2: that I'm sure you will benefit from. So that further
Speaker 2: ado I bring you Corey Muscara. Corey Muscara, it is
Speaker 2: so great to have you on the Psychology Podcast again.
Speaker 3: Thanks Scott. It's good to be back four years.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, has it really been four years since your
Speaker 2: book came out.
Speaker 3: Late twenty nineteen. I think was the last one years on.
Speaker 2: So much feels like it's changed since then. How you
Speaker 2: changed since then? What has your own inner growth journey
Speaker 2: been like the last four years?
Speaker 3: I got married.
Speaker 1: During that time, I did know that I got to
Speaker 1: explore a lot of who Corey is in relationship and
Speaker 1: how Corey makes decisions from a place of alignment versus misalignment.
Speaker 1: What are the particular patterns and conditionings that Corey has
Speaker 1: that can lead him to make decisions that might not
Speaker 1: be from a deeper place of alignment, but out of
Speaker 1: patterns of conditioning, codependency, even people pleasing. So there's been
Speaker 1: it's felt like a big strip down the last four years,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of us have gone through that.
Speaker 1: With the pressure cooker of the pandemic, you have so much,
Speaker 1: so much energy that's forcing you to go inward. It's
Speaker 1: kind of impossible not to see stuff. And you can
Speaker 1: either suppress that and create more anxiety or numbness around it,
Speaker 1: or you can let it cook you and open you up.
Speaker 1: And I was fortunate to be cooked a bit. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's just been It's been a wonderful four years
Speaker 1: and hard in many ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and being your friend I have seen some of
Speaker 2: that journey in real time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate your friendship during all of it, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate your friendship in general, Scott. I just very
Speaker 1: much love our talks all the time. And for those
Speaker 1: listening on the outside that only get to see Scott
Speaker 1: maybe through the podcast, this is one of the most
Speaker 1: genuine humans I've ever met, and you give that much
Speaker 1: more permission for me to express all the different layers
Speaker 1: of myself with Yeah, with just a lot of compassion
Speaker 1: and acceptance. So I've appreciated all the ways our friendship
Speaker 1: has grown over the years and continues to and the
Speaker 1: journeys and the learnings that we're figuring out together.
Speaker 2: Well. Likewise, absolutely likewise what you just said, and thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you. You know, I do think that and I
Speaker 2: will own this. I do think I am very human,
Speaker 2: and I think that brings with it a lot of
Speaker 2: pain and suffering. Just to be honest, I also have
Speaker 2: trouble saying serious things without making them funny, so that's
Speaker 2: another issue of mine. But but yeah, I am very
Speaker 2: human and you are very human too, and I think
Speaker 2: that's something we connect around both of us, don't Like,
Speaker 2: I mean, you could say, we don't like bullshit, but
Speaker 2: that's not quite it. We don't like inhuman that often
Speaker 2: weds that often is correlated to the bullshit, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I think we both agree that we don't like personal
Speaker 1: growth or healing paradigms that exclude aspects of our humanity
Speaker 1: or add shame or guilt or any form of extra
Speaker 1: attention to what it means to be human. And if
Speaker 1: they're not moving you in a direction of more curiosity
Speaker 1: or acceptance or space for the many dimensions of what
Speaker 1: it means to be human, then they're probably leading you
Speaker 1: down a path of more compartmentalization in refracturing, and subsequently
Speaker 1: more suffering. And we both agree that we need to
Speaker 1: take responsibility for the different layers of our humanness and
Speaker 1: how they can create suffering for others. And so it's
Speaker 1: not about denying accountability or responsibility, but we both just
Speaker 1: seem to have an allergy to anything that creates more
Speaker 1: shame around those layers and have just seen the futility
Speaker 1: of paths that take that approach.
Speaker 2: That's very well say, I mean, like when did you
Speaker 2: get so wise? Have you always like were you in
Speaker 2: like middle school walking around being like you know, to
Speaker 2: love is to accept myself. And all your friends are like, Corey,
Speaker 2: shut up, like have you always been so wise? No?
Speaker 1: No, And I think I'll look I'll definitely look back
Speaker 1: five years from now, ten years from now, and and
Speaker 1: probably see the incompleteness of different perspectives. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean when I when I was in college. You might
Speaker 1: remember my journey from what I talked about last time
Speaker 1: that I didn't get into this work for any noble reasons.
Speaker 1: I started meditating because I was trying to impress a girl.
Speaker 1: I had a hippie girlfriend in college. He was in
Speaker 1: a meditation I wanted to think I was cool, so
Speaker 1: I started meditating, and then she broke up with me.
Speaker 1: And it was the pain of that breakup that actually
Speaker 1: kind of troubled me into a deeper conversation with myself
Speaker 1: and a deeper conversation with what are potential paths that
Speaker 1: lead to happiness, peace, relief in her freedom. So it
Speaker 1: started out as a superficial undertaking trying to impress a
Speaker 1: girl I was interested in, and then the pain of
Speaker 1: that led to some deeper inquiries. And I've just taken
Speaker 1: my type a personality into those deeper inquiries and they
Speaker 1: take me into newer and richer layers of my humanists,
Speaker 1: and it's just been incredibly beautiful.
Speaker 2: Richa who would break up with someone with those eyes?
Speaker 3: How am I supposed to respond to that?
Speaker 2: Okay, move on, So but I wasn't. I wasn't. I
Speaker 2: wasn't hitting on you, by the way, But I'm just
Speaker 2: saying if you were, I'm just saying, you know, who
Speaker 2: would break up with Corey? I? Look, I've learned so
Speaker 2: much from you and and and what I'm trying to
Speaker 2: understand is what is what am I learning from you?
Speaker 2: Because I'm a scientist, I learn a lot from my science,
Speaker 2: but I get something from you that I don't get
Speaker 2: from my science, and so I want to unpack that
Speaker 2: today I learn I really do learn a lot from you,
Speaker 2: And I get a lot from learning what you've learned
Speaker 2: from your own experience and your own sort of really deep,
Speaker 2: deep extensive investigation of your own inner experience. So there's
Speaker 2: something that you're getting from that deep investigation that is
Speaker 2: helping me learn how to live my life in a
Speaker 2: way that I can't just simply get from reading peer
Speaker 2: of you journal articles. So that I wanted to discuss
Speaker 2: that today because it is so interesting, you know, Like
Speaker 2: I tend to and that's rare for me. I tend
Speaker 2: to like data. I tend to like you know, I'm like,
Speaker 2: show me that if someone has a truth claim, I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: that's a truth claim that should be tested, that should
Speaker 2: be investigated. I sort of just take what you say
Speaker 2: at phase value though, because it rings true. Often often
Speaker 2: we'll get into for our free will disagreements later. But yeah,
Speaker 2: what is it I get from What is it I'm
Speaker 2: getting from you?
Speaker 1: Well, you tell me, And let's just start with maybe
Speaker 1: like the basic observable things in your experience, which is
Speaker 1: often the approach we take in meditation or these contemplative,
Speaker 1: less scientific traditions where your understanding experience through direct observation.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of the year, you did some of
Speaker 1: my teachings that seem to have a particular impact on you,
Speaker 1: and maybe you could start by describing.
Speaker 3: Profound what some of that shift was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, profound impact. I don't want to like sound like
Speaker 2: an infomercial for Corey Muscow Muscao, but I profound impact.
Speaker 2: I started off the new year with a full thirty
Speaker 2: day knew you. What did you call it? What did
Speaker 2: you call it?
Speaker 1: It's called the starting fresh, letting go, reconnecting, and looking forward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well all those things, all those things is what
Speaker 2: I did for through thirty days. And you know, there's
Speaker 2: something really profound that that happens when you connect with
Speaker 2: your yourself as it is day in and day out,
Speaker 2: not you know, I don't. Don't you think a lot
Speaker 2: of people connect with themselves and we all we all
Speaker 2: do is like we connect with like the version of
Speaker 2: ourselves that we like think we should be, or we
Speaker 2: connected with the version of ourself that well, I guess
Speaker 2: there's no other way to put that, that we should
Speaker 2: think we should be. Yeah, like all the societal expectation.
Speaker 2: There's there's like the societal expectations self, and then there's
Speaker 2: like our actual experience. And and Carl Rogers wrote about
Speaker 2: this a lot, and he called it congruency. And I
Speaker 2: think a lot of what you were teaching was congruency.
Speaker 2: I think Carl Rodgers would have been proud of you
Speaker 2: if you took your course. The humanistic psychologists were all
Speaker 2: about experience, and this is this is the reason why
Speaker 2: I resonate to humanistic psychology and why I even call
Speaker 2: myself a humanistic psychologist is because they were a rare
Speaker 2: branch of psychology that wasn't all about the objective. They
Speaker 2: were also about the subjective. And so, yeah, so taking
Speaker 2: your course and really connecting with the actual experience in
Speaker 2: a non judgmental way, in an accepting way, really helped
Speaker 2: me accept a lot of sides of myself that I've
Speaker 2: had shame over or that I've been trying to ignore
Speaker 2: or repress. So that was super helpful in that regard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I know we had been talking about
Speaker 1: that for probably a year leading up to that course
Speaker 1: as well, just riffing on our own regular talks about
Speaker 1: different aspects of ourselves that we might have more or
Speaker 1: less acceptance for.
Speaker 3: And I think a big part.
Speaker 1: Of what I've learned as a human going through my
Speaker 1: own inner experience and then as a teacher, is seeing
Speaker 1: how much resistance, suffering shame we have toward different aspects
Speaker 1: of ourselves. That's learned over the course of our life,
Speaker 1: of parts of ourselves that are safe and okay to
Speaker 1: share that might get us praise, connection, love, and other
Speaker 1: parts of us that are less safe to share that
Speaker 1: may be led to disconnection or being made fun of,
Speaker 1: being hurt, and so some of that we're conscious of,
Speaker 1: a lot of it we're not conscious of, but that
Speaker 1: ends up creating It ends up creating an inner experience
Speaker 1: that can often feel like we're at war with ourselves.
Speaker 1: And when we're at war with ourselves, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of noise in the system. We have a lot of
Speaker 1: thoughts that are saying like, you should be this way
Speaker 1: and you shouldn't be that way. Oh, now you're good
Speaker 1: or now you're bad, and you get this bifurcation of good, bad,
Speaker 1: right wrong, And I have just found that it creates
Speaker 1: a lot of agitation and the system. Then, one thing
Speaker 1: that I've found is that when there is a lot
Speaker 1: of agitation in the system, it's hard to know what
Speaker 1: voice to follow, and it's hard to even discern is
Speaker 1: there even like a deeper voice or a deeper place
Speaker 1: of alignment that can serve as the backdrop for decisions
Speaker 1: that we make that might actually propel us toward greater
Speaker 1: freedom in their spaciousness and ease versus more patterns of
Speaker 1: control or tension suffering. And so a big part of
Speaker 1: the work I do is helping first make an internal
Speaker 1: container of permission for all the different parts of you
Speaker 1: to exist do that, thank you, and not to necessarily express,
Speaker 1: because there's some parts that have maybe been hurt, and
Speaker 1: if they were to just spill over onto the world
Speaker 1: that could cause harm to other people. But for us
Speaker 1: to first have the capacity to hold internally with curiosity
Speaker 1: and compassion and non judgment so that we're not one
Speaker 1: becoming our own worst enemy and trying to like force
Speaker 1: and will and hate ourselves into a better life, which
Speaker 1: tends to be the path. And I stand strong in
Speaker 1: my contention that if you hate yourself into change, then
Speaker 1: you're just going to get a future moment that's like
Speaker 1: held together by the thread of hate and doesn't have
Speaker 1: much range for you to exist outside of that. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you might have like a certain piece and contentment, but
Speaker 1: it only exists within a very narrow alley of your
Speaker 1: ego self expressing in a particular way that matches the
Speaker 1: blueprint of some other facet of your ego self. And
Speaker 1: so that isn't freedom to me or piece that actually
Speaker 1: sounds like an inner prison.
Speaker 2: To hear that mic, it's this guy. The guy is
Speaker 2: wise beyond his years. I mean that you really, you
Speaker 2: really are. I mean it's like it's incredible amount of
Speaker 2: wisdom you drop in like a couple of sentences. But
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of your audience, you know,
Speaker 2: So we in psychology we have internalizers and we have externalizers.
Speaker 2: We have those that have this inner turmoil and sort
Speaker 2: of externalized and projected onto others and cause a lot
Speaker 2: of suffering and pain to others. And then there are
Speaker 2: others that have a lot of that inner tourmoil and
Speaker 2: they really keep that spotlight inward. In all honesty, I'm
Speaker 2: a really big internalizer and I've noticed taking your I
Speaker 2: feel like, for this episode, like it's not gonna work
Speaker 2: if I'm not vulnerable. So so I'm just gonna go there.
Speaker 2: Taking your uh course made me realize how much of
Speaker 2: an internalizer I am, and I suspect a large majority
Speaker 2: of your audience are internalizers. This is just based on
Speaker 2: watching your audience. I mean, I know, I know, I
Speaker 2: get I get a pulse, you know from the Instagram
Speaker 2: you know things. Is It's like, I feel like a
Speaker 2: lot of them are internalizers. I don't see them as big,
Speaker 2: acting out kind of people. So so that really is
Speaker 2: kind of your audience. Are these are people like neurotic internalizers?
Speaker 2: Like me and and so you see a lot of it.
Speaker 2: Do you have advice for people like us who really Yeah?
Speaker 2: Mas Well called it like fighting a civil war within
Speaker 2: yourself is how he phrased it. But for people who
Speaker 2: feel like they're fighting, because I do feel like I
Speaker 2: fight this war with him. I feel like there's one
Speaker 2: side of me that wants growth, and I feel like
Speaker 2: there's another side of me that wants to tear myself down.
Speaker 2: And I feel like I'm constantly I have this duality,
Speaker 2: like throughout the course of every single day, there two
Speaker 2: are fighting with each other. Is that? Am I alone
Speaker 2: in that? Like when you say, like like our large
Speaker 2: sizeable number if your audience, do you hear something common
Speaker 2: like that?
Speaker 1: Yes, I would say the majority have that tension.
Speaker 2: What the hell is that? Like? Why do I Why
Speaker 2: is there asside of me that wants to like take
Speaker 2: my successes and denigrate them in a way.
Speaker 1: Let me turn that toward you for a moment and
Speaker 1: ask how has that pattern served you in some way
Speaker 1: over the years.
Speaker 2: It helps me when I get too overwhelmed with emails,
Speaker 2: I can say I can tear myself down and then
Speaker 2: shut down and like they'll leave me alone.
Speaker 1: Okay, and so what does the tearing down look like
Speaker 1: in a scenario like that.
Speaker 2: Well, the tearing downside comes when I'm overwhelmed and with
Speaker 2: the world because I'm very sensitive, okay.
Speaker 1: And the tearing and the tearing down is toward you
Speaker 1: or wanting to tear it all down externally.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's a good question. Well, because I'm not
Speaker 2: an externalizer saying I kind of take out my anger
Speaker 2: or whatever. I just take it out of myself because
Speaker 2: I don't want to cause harm to others. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: that's what it is. I mean, you could see the
Speaker 2: same path of someone who has my inner dialogue, but
Speaker 2: who's an externalizer and just says like shut the fuck
Speaker 2: up to people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, so this is one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: say until you are able to hold the discomfort of
Speaker 1: life with presence and stillness, it will continue to push
Speaker 1: you into patterns that frustrate you with unconscious reactivity. And
Speaker 1: what you're seeing right now is like an uncomfortable experience
Speaker 1: arises with the email. It's just it's a basic stimulus
Speaker 1: and response stimulus. The feeling of like this is too much,
Speaker 1: and that feeling of too much wants to relieve itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so for some people they relieve it by freezing.
Speaker 1: We can numb and shut down and zone out. For others,
Speaker 1: we can fight the world and we that's where people
Speaker 1: go to get into patterns of self sabotage, maybe with
Speaker 1: their business or their work, or just like f the world,
Speaker 1: I can't do this, I knew this wouldn't work anyway,
Speaker 1: and kind of blow it all up as a way
Speaker 1: to relieve the pain. Or in this case, you might
Speaker 1: direct it toward yourself and it's maybe more of like
Speaker 1: an implosion, and that could be a form of trying
Speaker 1: to like force yourself to buck up and do it,
Speaker 1: or it could be just a form of you trying
Speaker 1: to get rid of it by telling yourself, like this
Speaker 1: can't work, or I knew it couldn't work. I get
Speaker 1: angry at myself for not being good enough to do
Speaker 1: it all to try to design in a way to
Speaker 1: shift something that will cause this to relieve itself. And
Speaker 1: and so I think there's a there's a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons why people have particular patterns in relationship to overwhelm,
Speaker 1: but there are usually some form of a learned survival
Speaker 1: strategy that we we tend to lean toward one one
Speaker 1: or or others. For some of us, I have more
Speaker 1: of a freeze response where I just kind of like
Speaker 1: get quiet, don't want to do anything, zone out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and other people that have a.
Speaker 1: Freeze or a fawn or a fight a fun response
Speaker 1: would be kind of It's almost like a people pleasing
Speaker 1: dynamic where you go above and beyond right where you
Speaker 1: might feel on relationship with with an abuser or someone
Speaker 1: who's harmful to you, instead of fighting or freezing or
Speaker 1: running away, you go, did you invent that?
Speaker 3: No? No, no, no, the four they're called the four fs.
Speaker 2: I've never heard of. Yeah, but I've never heard fawn before. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: I want to give credit where it's due. I believe
Speaker 1: the person who created that also wrote the book Complex
Speaker 1: PTSD from Surviving to Thriving. So for those who want
Speaker 1: to check that out, but I'm not one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is that.
Speaker 1: It's the fourth F that's often misunderstood and a lot
Speaker 1: of people fall into it. And you might even do
Speaker 1: this with like at work people. It's not just like
Speaker 1: in a difficult relationship where you just try to be
Speaker 1: extra nice so that you get the response.
Speaker 3: You're looking for.
Speaker 1: You might do it with your colleagues when they're not
Speaker 1: being nice to you. Instead of standing up for yourself
Speaker 1: or going like I don't want to work here, you
Speaker 1: try to abandon yourself by becoming some version that you
Speaker 1: think they will like better, and you might get a
Speaker 1: temporary reward hit from that, maybe they're less mean to you,
Speaker 1: but you find like hours later, just like why do
Speaker 1: I feel yucky? Why do I feel disconnected from myself?
Speaker 1: So the faun is a very common pattern, but they're
Speaker 1: all just reactions to stress, and that's why one of
Speaker 1: the first things to be able to work with that
Speaker 1: is can we hold the intensity within our nervous system
Speaker 1: without immediately reacting, or at least to be able to
Speaker 1: see what that to feel, what that tendency is to
Speaker 1: react and then start to work at that edge instead
Speaker 1: of immediately going into reaction.
Speaker 2: Well that's it, that's that's mindfulness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's where mindfulness comes in in a significant way
Speaker 1: as like a foundation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I bet you you're a fan of that quote.
Speaker 2: You know, between stimulus and response is that choice to decide?
Speaker 2: Who know who whoever came up with that quote, But well.
Speaker 1: You were the one who told me it wasn't Victor Frankel.
Speaker 1: Wasn't when you were reviewing my book and you're like,
Speaker 1: this actually isn't Victor Frankel. And since then, I've told
Speaker 1: many people it's not Victor Frankel, and I receive.
Speaker 3: A lot of hate.
Speaker 1: People are very attached to Victor Frankel. Having said that quote,
Speaker 1: I said some version of it.
Speaker 2: He said, so, I mean his yeah, the general sentiment.
Speaker 2: But but that sentiment, I mean that it does encapsulate
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of a lot of mindfulness.
Speaker 2: But your book, I think also encapsulates encapsulates a lot
Speaker 2: of it. And the whole idea of like, you know,
Speaker 2: like don't miss your life because it just it'll fly by.
Speaker 2: It's just I'm coming up on my forty fifth birthday
Speaker 2: in a couple of weeks, and I'm just like, what
Speaker 2: the hell, like it just flew yeah, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: I don't want to miss any more of it.
Speaker 1: And what are the times where you feel like you're
Speaker 1: really plugged in and maybe not that it's slowing down,
Speaker 1: but you feel like, yeah, it went fast, but I
Speaker 1: was really there. Have you had experiences like that?
Speaker 2: Definitely? Definitely And it's usually surrounding, spending time, quality time
Speaker 2: with friends and family. Yeah, and right, writing, writing, yeah, writing, writing, writing,
Speaker 2: being in the full state with a book.
Speaker 3: Hmm yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So deep immersion, deep immersion. Now I've been finding because
Speaker 1: I'm seeing it too. I'm I'm thirty four now, and
Speaker 1: damn you catch bro. I know I'm trying to catch up,
Speaker 1: but you just keep moving forward as well. But the
Speaker 1: last four year, I mean ever since I hit thirty,
Speaker 1: it's just a year, feels like six months.
Speaker 3: And it's it's wild.
Speaker 1: And but when I when I asked myself, like, was
Speaker 1: I there the last year, the response is yes, I
Speaker 1: couldn't have asked four more. I couldn't have asked to
Speaker 1: show up. I mean, for certainly areas where I go
Speaker 1: on automatic pilot. But I have a lot of space
Speaker 1: for that just being part of the day to day
Speaker 1: it is. It is as someone who spent a long
Speaker 1: time in a monastery trying to perfect moment to moment awareness.
Speaker 1: It is near impossible to sustain a continuity of presence
Speaker 1: throughout the day. So I have a lot of space
Speaker 1: for the going in and the out and getting triggered
Speaker 1: and getting caught in those spirals for a while, but overall,
Speaker 1: like the intention is to be here for my life
Speaker 1: and it's moving fast. But I feel like I'm showing
Speaker 1: up with as much sincerity as I can and I
Speaker 1: think that's all we can do. We can ask, that's
Speaker 1: all we can do.
Speaker 2: Are you Are you a fan of vickor toy Toy.
Speaker 1: I haven't gone into his work in a long time.
Speaker 1: I do believe he's on something deep. He's in the channel,
Speaker 1: He's in a particular channel that is, let's say, non egoic.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things I've always I struggled
Speaker 1: with a bit when I read some of it, Like
Speaker 1: when I read The Power of Now was I felt
Speaker 1: like he was transmitting some deep wisdom with not enough
Speaker 1: uh footholds or rungs of the ladder to grasp onto
Speaker 1: for how to move in that direction, which a lot
Speaker 1: of teachers do, and and it's fine, it's a way
Speaker 1: to teach you kind of just transmit the truth of
Speaker 1: the thing that you're connected to. But I found that
Speaker 1: I needed more like step by step instructions for how
Speaker 1: to get there.
Speaker 2: I gotcha.
Speaker 3: Do you like that cartoling?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I do. I do. I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of overlap. I want to read
Speaker 2: this this uh text, I'm want to read a bunch
Speaker 2: of texts that that I get daily from you. But
Speaker 2: I don't feel special because you're sending these texts out
Speaker 2: to all your followers. As you know, I really do
Speaker 2: practice not being a victim to things or having holding
Speaker 2: a victim mindset, and so I was really delighted to
Speaker 2: see this text from you where you say, don't be
Speaker 2: a victim to your past self, learn, be accountable, have
Speaker 2: self compassion, and keep moving forward, very in line with
Speaker 2: a new a new project that I'm working on, which
Speaker 2: I'll announce soon. But this idea of don't be a
Speaker 2: victim to your past self, is it possible for that
Speaker 2: to be the case even if other people won't let
Speaker 2: you move on from your past?
Speaker 3: Well that I believe to be.
Speaker 1: I would call it a deep spiritual practice where you
Speaker 1: do the work of forgiving yourself when other people won't
Speaker 1: forgive you. And it's important to first note that forgiving
Speaker 1: yourself is not denying responsibility for your actions. I think
Speaker 1: the first step to an actual healthy self forgiveness is
Speaker 1: meeting deeply, honestly, and that often comes with a lot
Speaker 1: of pain of where you were potentially unconscious and caused
Speaker 1: harm and to feel the harm and the pain that
Speaker 1: you cause for another person. Then that can happen in
Speaker 1: friendship and partnership, at work just in general.
Speaker 3: And the willingness to meet that.
Speaker 1: Honestly and to see where what your actions have caused
Speaker 1: is a big piece of what.
Speaker 3: Allows for learning and.
Speaker 1: Healing whatever part it was that created that harm. However,
Speaker 1: there can be points in relationship, especially your partnership, where
Speaker 1: you can take responsibility and you can have looked deeply
Speaker 1: in yourself and you saw where you were unconscious and
Speaker 1: where you created harm, and you're sorry for it deeply,
Speaker 1: and you go through a lot of loops of showing
Speaker 1: up for the other person, sharing where where you were
Speaker 1: wrong and what you've learned and where things are different,
Speaker 1: and they are still in the pain of it and
Speaker 1: they want to keep you as the perpetrator so that
Speaker 1: they can still dwell in the power of the victim.
Speaker 1: And if that's a new concept for people, it might
Speaker 1: not make sense, like where do you get power from
Speaker 1: being a victim?
Speaker 3: But when when you're.
Speaker 1: Hurt and when you're sad, and when you've when there's
Speaker 1: been a violation, and there's a powerlessness to that feeling.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways that you can help buffer
Speaker 1: against the powerlessness of that is to make another person
Speaker 1: wrong so that it puts you in a particular role
Speaker 1: of they did that to me, and the anger is
Speaker 1: an easier form of suffering than the suffering of sadness,
Speaker 1: or a more powerful form of suffering than the suffering
Speaker 1: of sadness. So you know, there comes a point where
Speaker 1: if you've done the work where you're clear in yourself,
Speaker 1: or as clear as you can be that I am
Speaker 1: looking as honestly as I can, I've checked myself, I've
Speaker 1: taken responsibility. But now we're at a point where it's
Speaker 1: clear this other person doesn't want to let me off
Speaker 1: the hook because they still have their journey. Then that's
Speaker 1: where I say it becomes a pretty deep spiritual practice.
Speaker 1: So let's just say, like a deep personal growth practice
Speaker 1: to do the work of holding a forgiveness for yourself
Speaker 1: while they while others externally are not. And that's also
Speaker 1: where we can get victimized, and that's where this quote
Speaker 1: came from. Where we can be victimized by our past self,
Speaker 1: and our past self did something, and then we just
Speaker 1: feel like we can't move forward or we can't allow
Speaker 1: ourselves to be happy again or feel peaceful again because
Speaker 1: of something our past self did, and so we need
Speaker 1: to can continue to wallow in the pain of us
Speaker 1: being I'm bad. Yeah, I'm bad. I don't deserve anything
Speaker 1: good like that. That is not that's not a high ground,
Speaker 1: that's not maturity, that's that's that's fear of doing the
Speaker 1: work actually, of how difficult and painful it can be
Speaker 1: to hold yourself in forgiveness, hold your past self in forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Because we're just socially, so deeply socially wired for connection
Speaker 1: with with others. And I find that many people they
Speaker 1: don't actually want to be let let off the hook.
Speaker 1: People people want to take some accountability for what they
Speaker 1: what they did if they're given an opportunity to do
Speaker 1: so in in relationship. But yeah, it's tricky because you
Speaker 1: have two people and and in this particular scenario, there
Speaker 1: tends to be a lot more understanding and compassion for
Speaker 1: the person and who was hurt rather than the person
Speaker 1: who caused hurt. And that's where this stuff becomes quite tricky.
Speaker 1: But you'll never you'll never move toward healing if there's
Speaker 1: not a will, a willingness to hold the person who
Speaker 1: created pain through the lens of who they are now
Speaker 1: and through their willingness to be honest and accountable and responsible.
Speaker 1: And I just see a lot of that happening globally
Speaker 1: and culturally right now.
Speaker 2: Wow, there's one of my favorite quotes is the Irvin
Speaker 2: Yealm quote. Sooner or later, you have to give up
Speaker 2: hope for a better past m.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I like.
Speaker 2: Relevant to this. I mean a lot of your texts
Speaker 2: are very compassionate. You would if you're not letting people
Speaker 2: off the hook. Like you say, you will make mistakes
Speaker 2: in life, big ones. Maybe that's the whole text. Maybe
Speaker 2: I M sorry, the whole thing is you will make
Speaker 2: me seecause life big ones. Don't be a victim to your
Speaker 2: past self, learn to be accountable, have self compassion to
Speaker 2: keep moving forward. I mean, yeah, you already explain that
Speaker 2: you're not letting people of the hook. Yeah, you just
Speaker 2: made that clear. Well, there's so many, there's so many.
Speaker 2: I want to pick some of my favorites. Let's pick
Speaker 2: one that maybe we can debate a little bit, Which
Speaker 2: is the one.
Speaker 1: For everyone listening? Scott will often send me messages like
Speaker 1: sometimes they're like, oh I love this one. I resonate
Speaker 1: so deeply, and then the next day it'll be like,
Speaker 1: I don't agree with this one at all.
Speaker 3: What do you mean by this? It's true.
Speaker 1: That's part of the beauty of our relationship. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of range to dig into stuff. It's true,
Speaker 1: It's very true, it's wonderful. Let me read this one
Speaker 1: to you because it, on first blush stood against everything
Speaker 1: I think is true. You said you're and I'll unpack
Speaker 1: that and you can tell me. It's probably comes down
Speaker 1: to terms. Your true self is already whole. It can't
Speaker 1: be further perfected. It holds all your wisdom and peace.
Speaker 1: Thus our path is to unwind back into ourselves. I
Speaker 1: one hundred percent want you to explain yourself, but before
Speaker 1: you do, let me just say what triggered me with
Speaker 1: that one? Because I think it's good in these kinds
Speaker 1: of discussions to say, well, what did I project onto
Speaker 1: you there? Because you know a lot of that I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's what you really meant. So for me,
Speaker 1: I I've said things you know, in a podcasts and
Speaker 1: in my writings that I really roll my eyes when
Speaker 1: I see self help books be like you are great,
Speaker 1: you know, you are perfect just the way you are,
Speaker 1: you know, and it holds no accountability whatsoever for someone's
Speaker 1: life or responsibility for someone's life, you know, because none
Speaker 1: of us are perfect just the way we are. We
Speaker 1: all have work to do, we all, we all have
Speaker 1: growth to happen.
Speaker 2: And also the idea of the true self. I've argued
Speaker 2: there is no true self that we're all. We all
Speaker 2: contain multitudes, and there may be our best selves you know,
Speaker 2: are not so best selves. But we need to take
Speaker 2: responsibility for our whole self if we're ever going to grow,
Speaker 2: not just say the true self is really me and
Speaker 2: all the bad stuff is not me. So that's another
Speaker 2: aspect of this. Yeah. So those are two big aspects
Speaker 2: that triggered me. So where is that when I say that,
Speaker 2: please let me know where I've got maybe like projected
Speaker 2: onto you what you maybe maybe you didn't even mean
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, thinking you meant stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, first of all, we do there is a
Speaker 1: limitation and often a loss in translation, uh with terms,
Speaker 1: So we can start by acknowledging that and also character
Speaker 1: limits those texts I can only squeeze in one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty characters, which often frustrates me tremendously. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think we're too far off. First of all, I
Speaker 1: cringe at all the same things that you really Oh wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: And and so where the X that I'm sharing here
Speaker 1: actually doesn't feel antithetical to what you shared.
Speaker 3: I think there might be.
Speaker 1: A layer of it that that we can build on
Speaker 1: that's different. But I don't agree with with this idea
Speaker 1: or I don't purport the idea that everyone is just
Speaker 1: perfect as they are and therefore you don't have to
Speaker 1: take accountability and responsibility. When I say that there's a
Speaker 1: place in you that is is fundamentally whole, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: referring to that. I believe there's a distinction between parts
Speaker 1: of ourselves, which you might say, are some of the
Speaker 1: multitudes that what Whitman was referencing that represent that that
Speaker 1: have That's what I heard, right, So we have these
Speaker 1: multitudes and they can they can cause joy and fun
Speaker 1: and pleasure, and they eight aspects of a personality structure,
Speaker 1: and they can cause harm. And they're often ignorant, and
Speaker 1: they're young and they're developing, and so it's important for
Speaker 1: those parts to be massaged and educated and developed in
Speaker 1: a particular way. The aspect of the self like that
Speaker 1: I'm saying is fundamentally whole. So this this has come
Speaker 1: from my own direct experience, but is also echoed with
Speaker 1: from even people like you've had on this podcast, like
Speaker 1: Richard Schwartz where he.
Speaker 3: And he might back him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'd be curious where where you push back
Speaker 1: on there.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: I still think it is one of the most incredible
Speaker 1: things in psychology. One internal family systems, I think is
Speaker 1: one of the most incredible models in psychology, but also
Speaker 1: offers one of the most direct bridges between the contemplative
Speaker 1: traditions and the psychological additions. Where he was working with
Speaker 1: people in the depths of their suffering, who.
Speaker 3: Were cutting, were in pain, didn't.
Speaker 1: Want to live anymore, and could identify that the origins
Speaker 1: of those desires and patterns were parts of them, were
Speaker 1: parts of the person that had developed as protective or
Speaker 1: managerial aspects to get certain needs met or to feel
Speaker 1: something or to not feel something, and that when those
Speaker 1: parts stepped aside, when they felt safe enough to step aside,
Speaker 1: that there was an expression in that person that felt
Speaker 1: fundamentally them Like they all described, this feels more me
Speaker 1: and it feels characterized by things like calm, courage, certain confidence, compassion, clarity,
Speaker 1: and so right. And then he's seeing that with now
Speaker 1: that thousands of people, that everyone seems to have that
Speaker 1: space when these parts step aside, that there's something consistent there.
Speaker 1: So that to me is incredibly interesting that we have
Speaker 1: to ask a question if we take the perspective that
Speaker 1: everyone's different, has all these expressions, but when all of
Speaker 1: those expressions subside and all those patterns subside, that there's
Speaker 1: something that we can measure and see even just qualitatively
Speaker 1: that's consistent. Wow, well, that starts to match up with
Speaker 1: what a lot of the spiritual traditions, contemplative traditions have
Speaker 1: been saying as well, that you're not your thoughts, you're
Speaker 1: not your emotions, you're not your sensations. There's a place
Speaker 1: that resides beneath all of that, or around all of that,
Speaker 1: or imbued.
Speaker 2: In all of that, that's different.
Speaker 1: I don't it's above my pay grade to like point
Speaker 1: to a part of my body and say where it is,
Speaker 1: or to even say that it's within my body what
Speaker 1: I will say is like the time that I spent
Speaker 1: I've spent probably a year now, a year's worth of
Speaker 1: time in silent in silent retreat, six months as one chunk,
Speaker 1: and then you know, since then lots of different smaller
Speaker 1: silent retreats, and in those retreats, what all I'm doing
Speaker 1: is cultivating an awareness of my direct experience as I
Speaker 1: can observe. So I'm watching thoughts come and go, these
Speaker 1: thoughts that feel so me. I have this thought of
Speaker 1: like I'm really hungry right now. It's like, yeah, Corey,
Speaker 1: we are hungry, let's go eat something. Or I'm a
Speaker 1: bad person I shouldn't done, and you indulge in that
Speaker 1: it just feels so you that It's what I find
Speaker 1: every time is like the more I give space to
Speaker 1: just watch that come and go, the less those thoughts
Speaker 1: actually feel like me. And the more there's like a
Speaker 1: place that's observing the experience, that one that's even able
Speaker 1: to observe the experience, which already indicates that there's a
Speaker 1: separation between the content and or the object and the subject.
Speaker 1: But when I dwell in that space of the observer,
Speaker 1: that I feel more me and I and not just
Speaker 1: more me. I feel it's the life that it's like irreducible.
Speaker 1: It has the resonance of irreducibility. It can't go any further,
Speaker 1: can't go any deeper, it doesn't want to go any deeper.
Speaker 1: It has the resonance of completeness. It's inarguable. I don't
Speaker 1: need to shout it from the rooftops to defend it
Speaker 1: or make it real. It's just like true unto itself.
Speaker 1: And that if we could take like throw all the
Speaker 1: spiritual stuff aside and just say, like, if there's the
Speaker 1: possibility that that place exists within us and that many people,
Speaker 1: it seems like almost every person can get to that place,
Speaker 1: doesn't it make sense to try to lead our lives
Speaker 1: more from that place? And so if we can at
Speaker 1: least agree on that, then it starts to bring into
Speaker 1: question like, well, maybe that serves as an inner compass
Speaker 1: that holds everything for what will give us peace fulfillment
Speaker 1: and even wisdom for how to inform the decisions that
Speaker 1: we make. Is are the decisions we're making coming from
Speaker 1: the backdrop of that place or are they coming from
Speaker 1: the backdrop of the people?
Speaker 3: Please are part of me?
Speaker 1: That's like, oh, I should go into this relationship because
Speaker 1: I don't want to make this person feel bad if
Speaker 1: I don't go on a third date with them, or
Speaker 1: I should have this conversation with this person because if
Speaker 1: I don't, they'll they'll think I'm a bad person, even
Speaker 1: though there's something in the background in me that has
Speaker 1: no energy for this whatsoever. Most of us are trying
Speaker 1: to optimize our lives through those patterns. We're basically becoming
Speaker 1: like more the bio hacked optimized versions of our best
Speaker 1: managerial and protector parts, rather than seeing like, is there
Speaker 1: something a place beneath all of that that can actually
Speaker 1: serve as a compass? And I come to this conversation
Speaker 1: and this inquiry and anything I've found with a ton
Speaker 1: of humility. It's come from my own deep despair and
Speaker 1: frustration and not knowing what to do. Including the time
Speaker 1: after I came back from deep silent retreat, I still
Speaker 1: hadn't had it all integrated yet, And so it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I hit moments in my life where I genuinely
Speaker 1: did not know how to make a decision for something,
Speaker 1: And where's the place in me that will.
Speaker 3: Inform this decision?
Speaker 1: How do I know I can make a decision from
Speaker 1: a place that's actually going to be toward my highest good?
Speaker 1: What even is my highest good? And that's what led
Speaker 1: to this really deep inquiry and parsing and separating all
Speaker 1: of the noise from this like soft quiet impulse.
Speaker 3: And then I've found.
Speaker 1: That other teachers I've been talking about this picologists like
Speaker 1: Dick Schwartz, I have just said, like, maybe there's a
Speaker 1: framework for understands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had an insight. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: explaining that I had an insight, because you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I have my own framework and uh, And I realized
Speaker 2: that it's just a difference in the metaphor. But but
Speaker 2: we're talking about the same thing. You keep talking about
Speaker 2: beneath it all, and I talk about it rising above
Speaker 2: it all, and and that that's the difference. That that's
Speaker 2: why I'm getting I' getting hung up on it because
Speaker 2: your metaphor is different than the way I think about it.
Speaker 2: I don't see it as I see it as transcendence,
Speaker 2: as opposed to peeling away everything to get to a
Speaker 2: true core. So that was good, Like, it was really
Speaker 2: good to hear you talk about this because it made
Speaker 2: me realize you kept using the language of underneath it all,
Speaker 2: whereas I don't use that language, but I want to.
Speaker 2: I'm with you on I want to get people to
Speaker 2: the holy land. We want, well me and you, we
Speaker 2: want to get people to the same place. I think
Speaker 2: that maybe we just think about it differently in terms
Speaker 2: of I don't like, I think the real sell I
Speaker 2: think it's I think it's pernicious to think that the
Speaker 2: true self of you is really that pure, loving place,
Speaker 2: and that all this other parts of you are not
Speaker 2: the true you. They are true you, you know. I
Speaker 2: do think it's all true. It's all true. But I
Speaker 2: think that we can transcend those lower cells and I
Speaker 2: think we have higher selves, you know. But it's interesting
Speaker 2: because you then flipped at the end and you said
Speaker 2: something like higher and I was like, oh wait, he
Speaker 2: changed his metaphor for a second. There you did, you
Speaker 2: really did. We'll rewind the tape.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is I'll be the first to acknowledge
Speaker 1: the complications of language and the flip flopping of language
Speaker 1: for me, and I'm sure like I wrote a tweet
Speaker 1: four years ago that was basically a cry for let's
Speaker 1: get rid of the term higher self, because it suggests
Speaker 1: that there's aspects of us that are good and then
Speaker 1: aspects of us that are bad, and that if we're
Speaker 1: trying to move toward a place of more wholeness and integration,
Speaker 1: that that language implicitly creates separation. Yeah, I've come around,
Speaker 1: I've landed more on true But it is because I
Speaker 1: do believe there's a place within us that and this
Speaker 1: is why I'll share why I don't use words like
Speaker 1: transcend as much and or I might say like descend,
Speaker 1: come back to ourselves.
Speaker 3: It is because I do believe.
Speaker 1: That that core self has a gravitational pull and that everything,
Speaker 1: the patterns that we've developed over a lifetime are actually
Speaker 1: trying that our patterns that are scared of being that
Speaker 1: true self, that have learned when we just allow ourselves
Speaker 1: to be and express and be curious as we where
Speaker 1: maybe when we were kids that there were certain needs
Speaker 1: that didn't get met, or we did something from that
Speaker 1: place that caused our parents to yell at us, and
Speaker 1: then we learned like, oh, when I just allow myself
Speaker 1: to be, that's not okay.
Speaker 3: So who do I have to be for them?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: I have to be someone that works really hard and
Speaker 1: is quiet. So that I would say is a version
Speaker 1: of it takes energy to put that pattern in place.
Speaker 1: And let's just call it like a people pleasing pattern
Speaker 1: or a working hard pattern.
Speaker 3: And I.
Speaker 1: Almost imagine it as like a ball with a core
Speaker 1: and then like little spirals that are spiraling away from
Speaker 1: that and the spiraling away, or like the learnings and
Speaker 1: the patterns of who we need to be in order
Speaker 1: to get these other needs met from other people in
Speaker 1: the world, like safety, love, and connection. So my experience
Speaker 1: has been that the system is kind of exhausted by
Speaker 1: those patterns. It's it's exhausted by the people plasing, it's
Speaker 1: exhausted by the working hard that the working hard from
Speaker 1: a place of like I need to be good in
Speaker 1: order to get praised. That's different than working hard from
Speaker 1: a place of alignment, where the energy just wants to
Speaker 1: is pushing you.
Speaker 2: And so when you path the least resistance is what.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: And so I think for a lot of people, there's
Speaker 1: for almost all of us, there's actually an unwinding phase
Speaker 1: where we have to do less rather than more to
Speaker 1: let ourselves come back down to that irreducible core self
Speaker 1: and the the energy I feel imbued in the word
Speaker 1: transcend has like a going up quality, and I get
Speaker 1: what you're you're doing what most people are pointing to
Speaker 1: when I say that, But I actually filiant and it
Speaker 1: has been the case for me. The path to that
Speaker 1: place within myself has been more of like a letting
Speaker 1: go and surrendering quality. Yeah, and then the decenting just
Speaker 1: happens naturally, and it takes me through layers. It might
Speaker 1: take me through layers of anger, like if I don't
Speaker 1: prop up my feeling of like I should do this
Speaker 1: good opportunity, and then I go, Okay, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: not going to do that.
Speaker 3: Then I'm going to go through a.
Speaker 1: Layer of fear. Then I might go through a layer
Speaker 1: of anger. Then I might go through a layer of sadness.
Speaker 1: Then I might go through a layer of despair, and
Speaker 1: then all of that, which are like protective patterns of
Speaker 1: what would happen or who would I be or if
Speaker 1: I just like let go and trusted this soft knowing.
Speaker 1: Once I cycle through all of that, then I get
Speaker 1: to this place it's quiet and still, and it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what feels aligned, and I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: live more of my life from that place and it
Speaker 1: seems others gravitate toward it as well when they're given
Speaker 1: the invitation.
Speaker 2: I gravitate towards it. I like it. Sign me up,
Speaker 2: sign me up. Whether or not we're going up or down,
Speaker 2: I'll go, fuck where we're going, let's let's go, let's go,
Speaker 2: let's go. Yeah. Well it's like it it gets pedantic,
Speaker 2: you know, are we going up or are we going down?
Speaker 2: It's but isn't it kind of interesting though, to actually
Speaker 2: discuss that, because I don't think. I don't think. I
Speaker 2: don't think either. You are definitely right. I think the
Speaker 2: jury is still out on what the best language is
Speaker 2: for it. And I'm I'm open to rethinking you know,
Speaker 2: my metaphor, Yeah, for sure. Are you open to rethinking
Speaker 2: yours too?
Speaker 1: Yes, definitely the metaphor. So when you asked me the
Speaker 1: other day over text, you were like you said, I
Speaker 1: don't I can't tell if you're actually open to changing
Speaker 1: your position, which I think is great, Like you have
Speaker 1: to start from that place in a debate, and where
Speaker 1: what I will what I'll always say is one like
Speaker 1: I'm very open to being humboldt big time, and like
Speaker 1: I am just interested in truth whatever that is, and
Speaker 1: it probably has a lot of layers. I've experienced having
Speaker 1: a lot of layers, But I am here for life
Speaker 1: to crack me open. And it's kind of like an
Speaker 1: agreement I've made with myself. And if that means being
Speaker 1: like publicly shamed or saying something on a large platform
Speaker 1: like this and being wrong, I will own that. Holy,
Speaker 1: I will say, though, when you feel me when we're debating,
Speaker 1: I'm open to the language being off. The things that
Speaker 1: I hold with a certain steadiness are like direct experiences
Speaker 1: that I've touched that feel like they have a universal
Speaker 1: truth to them, which is like to give an example
Speaker 1: of something like that that might not have science to
Speaker 1: back it up, that could come from meditation. You directly
Speaker 1: observe that if you try to put your refuge of
Speaker 1: happiness in something that is inherently impermanent, you are not
Speaker 1: going to find a stable ground. And that's what many
Speaker 1: people try to do, and so meditation gives you an
Speaker 1: insight just as an example of like, everything's impermanent, so
Speaker 1: if you try to hold any single moment as a refuge.
Speaker 1: So that's an example of something that I would say,
Speaker 1: like that I've experienced as a direct truth and other
Speaker 1: people have experienced as a direct truth. It's possible it's off,
Speaker 1: but there's like a fundamental law that makes it so.
Speaker 1: So the things that I'm sharing and observing, they're not
Speaker 1: like frameworks that I've put together as like this is
Speaker 1: my idea. They're stemming from core truths like that that
Speaker 1: seem core, and I'm open to certain ones being slightly off,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I really try not to make strong
Speaker 1: claims unless they're coming from something like that that would
Speaker 1: require like an alternative reality for it to shift.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I get that. I get that. Yeah, No,
Speaker 2: there's it's just it's a it's a really interesting discussion
Speaker 2: whether or not by overcoming art because I think our
Speaker 2: default response is usually fear and ego. And so I'm
Speaker 2: thinking trying to think this through when we are inhibiting,
Speaker 2: you know, you're saying, like, we get through this, we
Speaker 2: get through this, we get through this. Is it going
Speaker 2: up or down? I'm getting hung I'm getting hung up
Speaker 2: on this because I don't know the answer, and I
Speaker 2: don't so You'm I want to like really keep thinking
Speaker 2: about this because I've never actually had this discussion with
Speaker 2: anyone in my field about this. So thank you for
Speaker 2: stimulating in me.
Speaker 1: And when you went through the thirty day courses year,
Speaker 1: did you feel and you like came back it felt
Speaker 1: like you were more you, or you felt more spacious
Speaker 1: and free? What was the the language I would use,
Speaker 1: and we could change the language I would say, I
Speaker 1: would ask you like, what was the energetic experience of that?
Speaker 1: But I think a different way to phrase that could
Speaker 1: just be did you feel like you were sinking more
Speaker 1: into yourself?
Speaker 2: Or you were? No, I transcended. I felt like I
Speaker 2: was expanding and I felt like I was transcending when
Speaker 2: I see the reason why descending doesn't see this. This
Speaker 2: is also the importance of not taking your own personal
Speaker 2: experiences as the truth. And this is this is another
Speaker 2: another thing I wanted to discuss. I was really excited
Speaker 2: to talk about all this stuff with you today because
Speaker 2: you know, there's the there's I mean, if it's if
Speaker 2: as scientists we just believed what everyone said is their
Speaker 2: experience and said, oh, well, therefore that's the truth, you know,
Speaker 2: then we would never discover the truth because we you know,
Speaker 2: they're there are generalizable truths that and sometimes they're outliers too,
Speaker 2: so sometimes you know, so I would say, like, it's
Speaker 2: an interesting what do we do with that? Your inner
Speaker 2: experience is telling you your descending And for me, I
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, when when I am just descending,
Speaker 2: what is happening is that I'm spiraling downward into fear
Speaker 2: and panic. To me, that's a descending to me. And
Speaker 2: I also think the point we don't project onto each
Speaker 2: other because we're different people, you know, and my inner
Speaker 2: experience is different than your inner experience, and that's why.
Speaker 2: That's why as well, I don't want to. I don't
Speaker 2: I would. I'm not so keen on even if I've
Speaker 2: done an investigation of my own inner experience for like
Speaker 2: ten years. Still, I'd be wary personally of generalizing that
Speaker 2: because you know, you don't have the same inner experience
Speaker 2: as I do of a constant pervasive sense of anxiety
Speaker 2: and dread. At least I don't think you do, and
Speaker 2: I do. Maybe maybe I'm wrong, but you know this
Speaker 2: is I've suffered with generalized anxiety disorder my whole life.
Speaker 2: So for me to descend more and more is to
Speaker 2: get in touch with that self more and more. And
Speaker 2: I don't like.
Speaker 1: That, And I would actually what I would say when
Speaker 1: I hear that, and also just from my frame work
Speaker 1: or frame of mind, that that kind of of descending
Speaker 1: or the experience that arises with that experience of descent,
Speaker 1: I don't actually take as a reason to avoid that
Speaker 1: kind of descending. I think actually most forms of descending
Speaker 1: back into yourself involve a huge amount of panic and
Speaker 1: fear and anxiety.
Speaker 2: Do you ever have existential dread?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I Mean I navigated a lot
Speaker 1: of it when I spent a lot of time in
Speaker 1: a monastery, so a lot of like the big existential
Speaker 1: fears I feel like I cycled through. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: still have existential dread. I still have like just the
Speaker 1: general fear that comes with being a human and like
Speaker 1: a whole lot of unknown.
Speaker 2: Well we're really onto something big here, Cory, Yeah, we
Speaker 2: really are. I see what you're saying. I was at
Speaker 2: the Apple store this morning because I woke up and
Speaker 2: accidentally dropped my water all over my laptop. We had
Speaker 2: my manuscript on it, and so I was feeling dread
Speaker 2: and anxiety, and I made a Genius Bar appointment, and
Speaker 2: this morning I was essentially having a panic attack on
Speaker 2: the way to the Apple Store, and as I was
Speaker 2: siteing there in the Apple Store. You know, I've learned
Speaker 2: at this point to be very good. I use all
Speaker 2: the tools that I have the tools, right, so I
Speaker 2: have all the tools I need to be able to
Speaker 2: handle and cycle, as you say, cycle through it in
Speaker 2: a way that ten year old, not even even ten
Speaker 2: years ago, Scott would have had great difficulty doing. So
Speaker 2: I've learned a lot of these tools. These are I
Speaker 2: view them as add on tools, you know that I've
Speaker 2: really learned. And so you know, I'm just thinking because
Speaker 2: it's like when we use language like, oh, just get
Speaker 2: in touch with your already perfect self. No, I had
Speaker 2: to learn. I had to add on those I had
Speaker 2: to learn how to regulate. It wasn't just as easy
Speaker 2: as like, oh, I didn't have to do all that
Speaker 2: work the last ten years. I could have just read
Speaker 2: Corey's tweet and just I've told myself, Oh, all I
Speaker 2: have to do is just get in touch with that
Speaker 2: perfect part of me, and then I would have been fine.
Speaker 2: I guess that's why I'm reacting to it a little bit.
Speaker 2: But I'm starting to see much more clear what you're saying.
Speaker 2: I like what you're saying, and I'm also holding this
Speaker 2: other stuff there as well.
Speaker 1: So I definitely think you can create self regulatory internal
Speaker 1: infrastructures by adding to the system and using.
Speaker 2: Cool let's just say I still work there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a managerial part, as Dick Schwartz would say,
Speaker 1: that might do something like scheduling our anxiety, just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm really I'm really nervous right now because I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about this interview I have to do three days. And
Speaker 1: we just talked to the mind like we use a
Speaker 1: skill and say like, hey, mind, yeah, I know this
Speaker 1: is intense, but how about we focus on this. We
Speaker 1: worry about this tomorrow for an hour and then, like
Speaker 1: you use a strategy like that, which is basically just
Speaker 1: like reorganizing the internal system to defer the energy to
Speaker 1: another point in time. Might not necessarily do anything fundamentally
Speaker 1: to shift how the mind is held within a larger
Speaker 1: context of.
Speaker 3: Being human, but it can work. It's a tool.
Speaker 1: What I would also say, though, is is that space
Speaker 1: of like being fundamentally whole where it serves in this
Speaker 1: and where I've felt it serve in moments where what
Speaker 1: I would call is like that my ego self that's
Speaker 1: basically terrified of making the wrong decision or doing the
Speaker 1: wrong thing, or saying the wrong thing, or being humiliated. Right,
Speaker 1: that part part like can't do life that well. That
Speaker 1: part arose from fear that I'm not if people don't
Speaker 1: love me, I'm not good enough. So it's constantly.
Speaker 3: Operating out of fear.
Speaker 1: This other place that it does require some subscribing to
Speaker 1: that it exists in yourself. And that's why you don't
Speaker 1: have to take any of it at face value, Like
Speaker 1: you can do the practices and see the people who
Speaker 1: have talked about this for millennium. Now that there is
Speaker 1: that place within you, that place doesn't have the same
Speaker 1: fear of I'm not good enough. It has safety imbued
Speaker 1: into it. When you're there, you don't feel like you
Speaker 1: need to defend yourself. You feel fundamentally connected.
Speaker 2: Right, I call them self transcendent experiences though.
Speaker 1: Right So, what I would say is a big part
Speaker 1: of healing, and you could even call it reparenting, is
Speaker 1: when that fear based part, that younger self part, is
Speaker 1: held and surrendered into the arms of that core self,
Speaker 1: And that has a fundamental at least in my experience
Speaker 1: of it. The energetic experience of it is one of
Speaker 1: like letting go and softening, and because the resonance of
Speaker 1: that core self space is it doesn't have this like
Speaker 1: pushing energy. It's just relaxed and spacious, like a bale
Speaker 1: of hay where you've snipped the twine and it just
Speaker 1: spread out.
Speaker 3: And So.
Speaker 1: What I've been playing with in the last years is
Speaker 1: what is it like when I feel that part that
Speaker 1: wants to manage and control and do my life and
Speaker 1: is afraid, just like, no, we have to do this
Speaker 1: reason because if we don't, then we're gonna hurt this
Speaker 1: person and they're not gonna like us. And I've just
Speaker 1: seen the futility of that. Just like, what if I
Speaker 1: just met that part and then felt that other space
Speaker 1: that's behind that's quiet and calm, and just say, what
Speaker 1: if you just let go and just let this other
Speaker 1: part hold you and hold the burden of having to
Speaker 1: do life. And there's something in that part that then
Speaker 1: softens in that moment and it gives way to this
Speaker 1: other wisdom. And I would say that like that process
Speaker 1: has a fundamental repair quality that can then carry you
Speaker 1: into future moments where that anxiety attack might arise, but
Speaker 1: not arise in the same way because the part that
Speaker 1: was extra anxious, felt alone and isolated, and then recruited
Speaker 1: some other managerial parts to help it, like what do
Speaker 1: we do.
Speaker 3: In this moment?
Speaker 1: And it can work, but it might not be addressing
Speaker 1: And I would argue, isn't addressing the core repair of
Speaker 1: where that anxiety might be coming from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for elaborating that. I could see a
Speaker 2: reframing here that might be helpful to a lot of
Speaker 2: people rather than self incendence. Maybe, I mean, you can
Speaker 2: write a book together someday on what it is. It
Speaker 2: seems like what is happening here if I step into
Speaker 2: your head, is we are learning It's you know, here
Speaker 2: are the tools that we're teaching you to actually connect
Speaker 2: with yourself. It's it's it's not like like maybe maybe
Speaker 2: there's there's there's another there's like, it's not self transcendence.
Speaker 2: It's you know, there are so many things that we
Speaker 2: do to just to uh, to move us in the
Speaker 2: direction of fear ego. All these sides of our I
Speaker 2: would say, true sides of ourselves that we don't enjoy
Speaker 2: being in, in which we don't don't feel authentic. By
Speaker 2: the way, I wanted to push back earlier and say
Speaker 2: just because things doesn't feel authentic doesn't mean it's not
Speaker 2: truthfully authentic. So that's another distinction I wanted to make
Speaker 2: to you, because you can't just use the argument to
Speaker 2: me that like, oh, well feel so, therefore that's true.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, we we delude ourselves all the time.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I would say you can get to refined
Speaker 1: levels of this where even something that's scary and uncomfortable
Speaker 1: you can still sense when it has the resonance of
Speaker 1: being in alignment or coming from that that le place.
Speaker 2: I see, So you're okay, good, this is really good.
Speaker 2: So you actually I finally have something I can I
Speaker 2: can attach to the your You're used to the word
Speaker 2: true and that's an alignment. Yeah, there we go. There
Speaker 2: we go. Now I get it, because I don't know
Speaker 2: what true means. You know, Look, I'm a nerd. I'm
Speaker 2: a scientist. I look in the brain, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: it's not like we see brain areas, like that's the
Speaker 2: true brain. Like, as a cognitive scientist, to be like,
Speaker 2: oh that brain activation is true, That brain activation is
Speaker 2: not true. That doesn't make any damn sense to me.
Speaker 2: But I actually see what you're saying. Yes, well that's
Speaker 2: that's huge. That that really is huge, because when we
Speaker 2: feel in alignment, we really do tend to feel there
Speaker 2: is a true an integrity, integrity, I would say, between
Speaker 2: who we really want to how we want to experience ourselves,
Speaker 2: and the way the world is giving us that experience,
Speaker 2: and that is beautiful that I'm all. I'm right there
Speaker 2: with you, and I love your your your exercises and
Speaker 2: thoughts on the importance of alignment. And so now I
Speaker 2: see you really do e quate alignment with when you
Speaker 2: use the word true, Yeah, to you, true is aligned.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll probably retire the word true. You don't have
Speaker 1: to on my behalf well in general because like my
Speaker 1: academic friends, and I'm not that far. I've like spent
Speaker 1: a decent amount of time in academia, and not to
Speaker 1: the level you have, but like I have respect for it,
Speaker 1: and I've also just found the limitations of it where
Speaker 1: I think in the last couple of years, I've just
Speaker 1: gone more in the this is my felt sense of things,
Speaker 1: and these are there's a language I put on it,
Speaker 1: but true is a complicated word, and I'm always struggling
Speaker 1: and working to find the language that speaks to the
Speaker 1: thing that you really you lose as soon as you
Speaker 1: put language on it, and therefore I make a lot.
Speaker 3: Of space for its its ongoing evolution.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I get you, and I feel
Speaker 2: like you get where I was coming from getting hung
Speaker 2: up on the word true. Yeah. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 2: think we both kind of get each other even, I think,
Speaker 2: much better even than we were we're an hour ago.
Speaker 2: What do you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we might even like each other more now.
Speaker 2: I didn't know if that was possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 2: It was already kind of in a ceiling. I was
Speaker 2: at a ceiling with you, but apparently not the other white. No,
Speaker 2: I'm joking. Thanks Corey, this was really a really wonderful chat.
Speaker 2: I've learned so much from you, and I do feel
Speaker 2: like there's a lot for people to really think through
Speaker 2: and to apply in their own lives. You know. It's
Speaker 2: like it's where it's at alignment, so connection, love, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like that's life. Where do you want out of life?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Right?
Speaker 2: Than those three things?
Speaker 1: Right? And maybe I think that's just like a good
Speaker 1: note to close on as well, Like when we're talking
Speaker 1: about how do you know what's aligned in the place
Speaker 1: in your life to lead from. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: where it takes some time to get close enough to
Speaker 1: yourself to be able to discern what are the things,
Speaker 1: the ways that I'm leading my life that actually don't
Speaker 1: feel good, and what are the ways that are almost
Speaker 1: inarguably good, and that I can then track along other
Speaker 1: people's experiences as well, Like, there's something about love and
Speaker 1: internal spaciousness and the feeling of being integrated and whole
Speaker 1: that just feels true. And what if I just let
Speaker 1: that serve as the backdrop for how I lead my life?
Speaker 1: How much different would it be than letting fear and
Speaker 1: control and trying to be good in other people's eyes
Speaker 1: constantly be the backdrop. And I think if you just
Speaker 1: start there, you're going to be on a really rich
Speaker 1: ride of life.
Speaker 2: I think, I agree, I agree. That's Isn't that a
Speaker 2: big part of the self actualization journey to use my
Speaker 2: stick to bring in my stick for a second? I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, isn't that that's That's a big part of
Speaker 2: the self actuization journey is constantly realigning your aligning yourself
Speaker 2: to where you are now, which might not be where
Speaker 2: you were ten years ago. You know, like I think
Speaker 2: ten years ago there are certain choices and things I
Speaker 2: made that I don't want to make anymore. But I
Speaker 2: think it was an alignment ten years ago. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's a constant process, right, yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Another reason why I don't like the idea of the
Speaker 2: true self because it cannotes were kind of born with
Speaker 2: this unalterable essence that doesn't that we just have to
Speaker 2: get in touch with. But you know, I just realized
Speaker 2: that's another that's another reason why that terminology triggered me.
Speaker 2: I realized a lot today. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1: And I could see how that could be triggering, and
Speaker 1: I could also see how maybe one day it could
Speaker 1: be really beautiful and inviting where you can hold both,
Speaker 1: you can hold all the parts of you that can
Speaker 1: that can improve and adjust. And maybe what they're doing
Speaker 1: is like reorganizing themselves to actually make space for the Scot,
Speaker 1: the essential Scot that's been there all along, to have
Speaker 1: more permission to come through.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, hey, I think both are possible. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: there could be both both both parts of ourselves. Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's also an interesting thing is how much do you
Speaker 2: want to accept and how much do you want to
Speaker 2: really change? You know, Except I think we should accept everything,
Speaker 2: but how much do we want to accept and change?
Speaker 2: And how much do we want to accept and accept?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that might be another podcast.
Speaker 2: Episode to be continued.
Speaker 3: Thanks Corey, thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Scott always enjoys always