#004 - Stefanos Sifandos - You're in Conflict With Your Past, Not Your Partner

We crave being seen, but we are often terrified of being known. Being seen validates the image we present to the world, being known exposes the parts we tried to hide. Those are the words of our guest today. Stefano's is a trained educator, author, behavioral scientist, and relationships expert with an extensive background in psychology, philosophy, and ecology. He's passionate about committing to leading people closer to their highest potential and to each other. His philosophy merges the best of Eastern and Western methodologies to promote spiritual balance and empower people in life and love. And from trauma released to navigating the murky waters of modern masculinity, to helping women understand the men in their lives. He helps people escape the negative patterns and cultivate a positive sense of self. Stefano's has worked with thousands of men and women from all walks of life, special forces, soldiers, Olympic gold medalists, elite world champion fighters and everyday people have relied on him to restructure and reframe their relationships with themselves, their past, their trauma, their potential and their loved ones. But it wasn't always that way. When this part feels crucial this year, in his own words, my childhood was painful, full of fear, violence, and abuse. There were times where I experienced love, but it felt so distant that I couldn't trust it. My father was absent and very physically abusive and my mother with my younger brother and I. I remember so many times, heavy hands on my body, he didn't know better. And that familiar feeling of breathing was intense. In addition, and we'll go into this today, I was enmeshed with my mother. As my father was unavailable and my mother projected her needs emotionally and unconsciously on me, I felt pressure in out of control. And I carried such a processed anger and trauma from my childhood that I projected it onto others. I started to find my voice in harsh awayers and felt more power, but was still withdrawn, was shy, sexually inexperienced. And I started my sexual journey late, prostitution and fidelity, shadow, sexual exploration, mixing with the wrong groups, exploring underground behavior and more, was taking me down a road I truly didn't want to go down, fighting, arguing, alcohol, and all the things were pulling me at me. And were distracting me from dealing with my pain, including mixing with the wrong kind of people, trying to prove myself, masking my insecurities, and controlling everything I could in my environment. Undelt with trauma, began to resurface. After relationship, after broken relationship, making the big claims of integrity and being a solid man, but inside, and in the shadows I was crumbling, being the opposite of that integrity and then blaming everyone else for it. I wasn't addressing my trauma and I was avoiding it like the plague, then one day I was caught, I wanted to stop living that life. I saw the look on my girlfriend's face at the time, the pain in her eyes, my interior flooded with shame, and memories came flooding back. Her pain and my actions activated part of me that had been dormant and hit her for so long. And we'll dive in in this moment. I gave myself only one choice, lean all the way in, go to depth and don't look back. One choice with three possible outcomes. Commit suicide, end up in a psychiatric ward, or break free from these limiting patterns and to live, to share and help others. Stephanie, I'm grateful that you chose the third, on behalf of me and behalf of all of us, and I'm grateful that you're here with us today. Welcome to the show. - Welcome to the show. I should have had you read my audiobook. (laughs) - That's a beautiful appreciate, thank you. - Well, there's a gift to be here with you today, and you know, Stephanie, as I wrote, I prepared for this interview, must have been 20, 30, 40, plus hours, and listen to your book and I've been through your content for the past few years, but over the past few hours, just sitting on the couch and reflecting on what I really want to know from you, I've through it all out the window. (laughs) And that's because I like to think one of your case studies, and someone who's inside of and following in so much of what you shared here, and that's why I chose to share the bio. And I wanna begin with, and I'm happy to share more of my experience of it, but I wanna begin with being a mesh to your mother. What does that mean? - It's highly unspoken to in our world, and it affects men and as a byproduct of affecting men, relationships, children, their families, the things, people, experiences, projects, they touch, right? Very deeply, and unless addressed, it affects us in very negative ways. A therapist that I work with, John Lee, not only highlighted this for me, and this is one of his specialties, and all the gentlemen in his 70s, and he's written quite a few books on the meshed entangle, perentified, emotionally incest, emotionally incest, it's expressed between mother and boy, specifically in this context, right? 'Cause it can happen with father and daughter as well. I mean, it can happen with parent and child, but essentially it's those unprojected needs of that adult, those emotionally unprojected needs of the adult that they're not getting in their lives from other healthy adult relationships, 'cause they don't exist, particularly in this case, the husband, and they're projected often on the eldest, not always, but often on the eldest boy, and those needs are attempted to be met, the need for validation you're being seen, being cared for, being nurtured, feeling safe, is projected on that little boy. Now, a little boy or a child during their formative years, developing, becoming themselves, learning about their own self-worth, their own constitution, individuating, understanding their own nervous system, that is a lot of pressure to feel, and it's not deliberate. I mean, sometimes it is, but it's more often than not deliberate from the parent. It's just, they're attending to full of void in their lives, because they don't know any other way to feel it. They haven't done a level of inner work, they're not self-reflective enough, they're not connected to their own spirit. And as a result of that, there's this unconscious projection. It doesn't, they don't know that they're doing it, but that develops some, for lack of a better term, weird dynamics, and not only weird dynamics, but confusing world view and reality for that little boy. So now what happens is the core feminine in his life, and I can speak for myself like the example of, this is the primary feminine of what it is to be a woman, or what it is to be feminine, is really needing a lot of me more than I can give. Now I don't have words for that back in this is in hindsight, right? I'm working with this, working with these parts of my psychology in my nervous system. But now intimacy, closeness, emotional sharing is icky. It's also uncertain. It also feels a little volatile. And as an adult, I took a lot of, like I wanted intimacy, and I wanted closeness, but then when I got to a particular place within closeness, I would push it away, because what would come to me was unconscious memories would flood me, when I say memories, more in my nervous system, just somatic sensation, right? Of, I don't want this. And so how I would deal with it, instead of being able to be with that feeling, which was a feeling of repulsion discussed, and sitting with it, I would distract and numb, and run away from and avoid, which most of us do. So how I would do that was I would seek novelty and variety, if I was in relationship or out of relationship. If I fell down, if I fell disconnected, I would go seek that. So peak experiences of pleasure, because of the pain that was associated with relationality, and being close and allowing someone to see me, and know me, and feel me, it was dangerous, because it came with so many conditions growing up. Like, I felt I was pressured to perform, pressured to take away my mother's pain, but I know human being could do that. So these are, again, there's more complexity than that, I'm just telling you to sort of distill and make it more simple to understand for us, but some of the downstream effects of that are, some that I've just shared with you now, where men cannot commit. They are very scared of intimacy, intimacy feels unsafe and dangerous. As a result of that, they cannot communicate their needs, because they've also been reprimanded in the past. So they can't say what they really want and what they're thinking, because they don't know what it is. Be they can't touch it, and see in the past, it's been like, but don't you want to be here for mommy? Your mommy's little boy. You're so special. - Yeah, I think it's heavy. - Oh, massive, and the shame is so shared with that, but if it wasn't for you, you and me and your daddy wouldn't be around, we wouldn't be together. - Yeah, yeah. - You're keeping us together. - Yeah, as a responsibility. It's like, it's simultaneously empowering and at the same time guilt ridden, because you never get it right. And that's the push pull that men will have in relationships. So they emotionally shut down. Again, I'm not very clear. I'm not making excuses for how men behave, for how anyone behaves. I'm giving legitimate reason that lives in our psychology and your over-systems, that unless it's addressed in a relationly mature way, we'll continue to propagate in relationship over and over again. And who suffers? - Everyone. I'm fascinated by this conversation, because I'd like to think that I, I guess, this is self-proclaimed in some way, but I'd like to think I'm a compassionate, loving human being. And I'm also in the most nurturing, loving relationship currently I've ever been in. But everything you're describing is here for me, all that. The nervous system, memories, the shutting down, the feeling like this feels like too much in moments, but I don't know why. Memories, when you said, "Memories flooding," I might not see what I'm going to do. I don't get memories, but then you said nervous system. - Feelings. - I feel something, but I don't, and it feels like it's, it's a, in moments, it feels like it's impossible to actually work through in the context of it. So can you just speak to what's happening? - In the body, in the nervous system. - It's shut down. It's massive shut down and avoidance. Because as children, we're very dependent. We can't, I mean, think about it. We can't survive, we come out of the womb and unless we're attended to, we're dead within minutes, hours, maybe days. That lasts for quite a few years. So we're so dependent on these primary caregivers. We can't really untether, and also our nervous systems as children is physiologically and spiritually psychologically tethered to the mother as well. And so in those moments, it's so intense to feel I want to be close, but there's no way I can. We don't even allow ourselves to feel it. And so we go to a compensation immediately. So it's different for everyone. Sometimes it's alcohol, sometimes it's validation through excessive work or anything in excess like it's sports, competitiveness, winning, accumulation of resources, heroin, drugs, partying, adrenaline seeking activities, adventure and travel, more novelty, more variety, like whatever distracts us from that pain, and we're trying to feel the gap. So it's compensation, most of it's compensatory. So what's happening in the body is this massive sense of confusion of, I recall something, I recall something happening. It felt like I was really needed and that felt good, but it also felt like a lot of pressure and a lot of conditions in this situation with this woman as a 25 year old man or 35 year old man or 50 year old man is reminding me of the thing that happened 40 years ago. But we don't know that, but we feel that because that woman is familiar, right? She's familiar to the core representation of the feminine. And so we make these unconscious associations or would that be, it must be the same thing. The same thing must be happening. So we're gonna shut that down. Now remember, I said something earlier about being dependable. When we're younger, we're dependable highly. As a result of that, we're often, just by default, disempowered. Unless we have really conscious, mature aware parents and primary caregivers, people in our environment, that understand human development and cognitive, intellectual, emotional, relational development, we will feel more often than not. And this is okay, by the way, but we feel the next is disempowered. And so as adults, we'll guess what? We're not kids anymore. You could pop most a good portion of adults in, I don't know, maybe not in the middle of the Panama jungle, but you could just plonk any adult somewhere, they'll pretty much survive. They'll figure it out, right? Even if it's in the country, they don't speak the language or whatever. You do that to a three year old or a seven year old, massive disorientation, right? And as a result of that disempowerment, so as adults, we're actually empowered. So now, I don't need to say yes to this. Also don't need to figure out what's going on because it's too overwhelming anyway. So my sense of empowerment will be, I'll shut down or I'll avoid or I'll run away, or I'll just have one night stands and I'm in power. Yeah, I'm in control. Totally. Where I wasn't in control before. Totally. Yeah, for me, it's the underlying conversation that is, I don't want this, but sometimes it just feels like the only way for me to feel fully empowered is to be by myself. 100%, and it is, and it's not. Yeah. It is in the sense that you'll feel a sense of relief, but it's temporary because you're not actually dressing the core wound, that still exists. That still lives. Isn't the first time in my life that I haven't ran for any, I've had other relationships where I've chosen that path and I just get to believe in this relationship right now that I'm in, we've been together for two years. It feels like it's a prolonged, like, I feel like that every conversation is presenting this nervous system reaction and the familiarity of it. And I think the honest underlying feeling that I often have is, and I can, I mean, I heard this a lot in childhood is that I'm one selfish and two that I'm ungrateful. And I know that's not my current partner claiming that of me, but anytime she does something for me, that's my immediate interpretation of it. She's cleaning up the house and I feel that. She's doing the dishes and I'm sitting on the couch. That's me. She does the laundry, I'm ungrateful and I'm selfish. I suppose my question is, how do I reconcile that? - There's a little saying that I use when, 'cause you have the awareness to know that that's not necessarily the case and you have the awareness to know that a lot of that is your past presenting itself in the present in order to be with it in a new and empowered way. And so a little statement that becomes a portal or a door into a new version of ourselves or a new expression is, that was then, this is now. And so even in those moments you may just sit with yourself and breathe slowly, that was then, this is now like, actually going to a more regulated place as opposed to like a hyper vigilant place. And then maybe share with your partner what's happening. You know, if you guys have a, a relationally mature. - Yeah, I don't think we do. - Yeah, it sounds like you do a relationship. You can, there are agreements in place. You can have conversations. You can explore new ways of being and so that you actually can see it differently. Like what my sense is, like, who told you that your mother? - Other time. - Other time. - Her turd voice, not yours. - That's her voice. And the common narrative was, and this is where, I mean, there's a lot intertwined here that I'm still, that, I'm at the place in my life, like you just said, having the awareness of it. I've, I've, I've, I've intellectualized the whole thing. Like I know intellectually what's happening, but when you talk about the body, - We've had to feel registered fully. - Sure. - And maybe been moved through my body. So we're gonna go into it in a moment and I wanna talk about rage and anger 'cause a lot of that's here right now. - Yeah. - Where I was going with that was, my mom would often do things for me and for us going up. Like fortunately, in a very wealthy upbringing, my dad played from Manchester United, so professional soccer. My mom was a professional dancer, we would send the ego. I was, maybe given everything a child could have asked for from a physical material standpoint. Anytime I didn't, maybe give my mom what she thought, I was supposed to give her. The immediate response was, don't ever ask for anything from me ever again. Like basically pulling everything away from me as a boy. - Yeah. - Would you experience, and I'm very sorry for it, that you had that experience because that's, and that's so, and not to minimize your experience is so fucking common, it's so common. - Yeah. - And it's people seeking control. Was your father available for your mother? - Was he present to your mother? - I just got divorced two years ago. - Just see. - For a long time, no. - Yeah. - Particularly growing up, was he available there? - Yeah, he always before, I found myself being the one that was, was often felt responsible for getting in between their arguments, and they fired it. - Would you, when you look back now, would you perceive your mother as being more in control or less in control in that relationship with her, with your father? - My mom, well, she was more dominating. - Yeah. - But I wouldn't say in control, like emotionally in control. - Yeah. - My dad was the more the one that would portray a calm image, but he'd also pick at her, you know, like he was, he's charismatic and strong. - Was she attempted to be domineering or was she was domineering? - What's the difference? - What do you think the difference is? - That's a good question. - She, so was she being, I want to, I want to, I don't want to just turn her question to you, you know, turn it back to you, so let me, let me explore that with you for a second. So, attempting to be domineering, that'll clarify it, attempting to be domineering with less success than more. Meaning that she felt so out of control, or she felt so, yeah, she felt out of control. - So it was a compensatory strategy, domineering. - And I noticed over years of the relationship, what happened was the more out of control, she felt more dominating. - Yeah. - She got, they eventually, my dad got emasculated. - There you go. That's when she became more of the, more of the mask. - So, she moved, yeah. She moved into a pattern of domineering and control, and she was doing the exact same with you. Would you say you're aesthetically similar to your dad? - Yeah, yeah. - So she would have been seeing you, or she would have been seeing her husband in you, right? And that would have reminded her of how fucked up their relationship was, right? And she would have just been unconsciously projecting on you. And so she would have had way more control over you, which clearly she has, because you're still working with this stuff. Now, which, bless you by the way, it's a good, not bad thing, we'll get to that later, but it's not a bad thing. But she would have had way more control over you, so that would have satisfied her survival instincts, right? Again, unconscious man, I was like, I'm not having to go at your mother here or blaming her or saying she's a piece of shit, because that's not the case. The best she could have done what she had. And there's a little boy in there that didn't deserve to feel all that experience at all. That was her immaturity. - Totally, and it's created an interest in relationship. One, me and my father, but also me with myself, because my mom loved this man, and she stayed with him for a while as well. And still, this day, if he was to go back, she'd take him back, I'm sure. But at the same time, You should tell me all the time don't ever become like your dad don't ever treat a woman like your dad treats me And so I can notice that I have such an aversion to being whatever the perception of that is Yeah, what is the perception of that curious a liar? The distinction ever revealed but potentially I don't know about infidelity That was really about you dad No, why not? I'm scared to scare what scared of the answer or scared of these reactions. Maybe it's denial or Yeah, there's a lot I think that I have not presence with my dad That I would there's a lot of questions I have That I don't know the answers to can I invite you into something? Yeah, I will invite you to I'm 99% certain you either know all those questions or you've written them down somewhere I do and I would say hey dad. Do you see dad often all the time? Okay, I'll say hey dad next time I see I've got some questions to ask you about your life Are you interested in listening and maybe exploring that with me? You know just about your life from when you were young to now to laugh and my guess is you say yeah, sure Go to the beach to the beach hit him up Put a recorder on if he doesn't mind, and yeah, you don't want to be around forever, man I'm not saying you're gonna find ultimate reprieve in that I just think all you're gonna find ultimate freedom or the thing whatever it is the thing that you're looking for But if you have a Communicative relationship with your father and he's a somewhat open. Yeah, even if he lies to you Like you're attached to the lies. You're attached to the disappointment. You're that's your code I'm still trying to work it out. Yeah, it's made my childhood still confusing and I can't figure out what's actually who is actually good and bad in this All scenario, you know both and all and none They're both good. They're both bad. They're both fucking nothing. It doesn't matter. Yeah, it's irrelevant You're making it. It's your meaning making your storytelling is making it something that it isn't I'm more interested in what happens to you what happens with you in your body when you have a conversation with bad With my dad or with every with your dad or with everyone. Yeah, for sure, but with your dad Yeah, the specific what would you anticipate would happen? I don't know how your dad would answer. I think I think I don't know if you're completely accurate in your assumption of how What you're scared of like name if you don't mind like name what you're actually scared of or what you're concerned about It may not be fear, but what are you what are you like he's gonna he's gonna get angry at you and walk off He's gonna just lie to you, but you're gonna know he's lying But you're not gonna want to press like what is that you're you're worried concerned fearful of I think I'm what I can a couple of things I've been in by saying that There've been many occasions with my dad in which My experience has been he said he's gonna do something and then doesn't do it and then I bring it up And he denies having ever said that and it feels a little bit like sliding doors type like like I'm scared that my reality is gonna Get distorted and I'm gonna leave more confused and clear that's one of the things and then maybe there's a part of me That's also afraid that I've probably I Think we always want good good guy bad guy, you know and and because of my relationship with my mother and Both bad guys, huh? What if they're both bad guys? Yeah, and then that maybe wouldn't wear the opportunity for the book to be good to it No, it opens opportunity for you to be the good guy Well for you to be your own savior in the drama triangle of the hero of the victim and the villain And you get to be your own savior not your father not another no one I'm more interested in what happens What if you needed more confusion to get clarity? What if you needed to experience more chaos? I'm not saying you do what if you what if what if what if your father actually just gave you the truth and the truth made Things more confusing and chaotic for you, but ultimately led you down to deeper clarity Yeah, because right now there's still a lot of codependence and and overreliance on totally him being all particular way Our mum being in particular way and it's better that it's unknown because it's safer But what if that's not what you need? Yeah, totally and that cut that part and of codependency reveal the self in my intimate relationship to my dad, you know and not in patterns. I would say that I Mean my therapist described it to me as disorganized attachment. I can relate as the volatility in my upbringing Yeah, I don't know What am I leaning in here? Am I pulling away? Yeah, I don't know. There's no the inconsistency of well When what I said about disempowerment and empowerment like there's still there's still energetics or threads or applications of disempowerment running in your in your intimate relationships your close relationships and and where you where it's imperative that you move from is from disempowerment to Empowerment part of that is like I'm not suggesting having a conversation with your father because that's going to free Not at all like I think you're quite intruded what you're saying is like it's probably going to cause Potentially more of what you don't want totally what I'm saying is like you may need to face that Totally and even as you're seeing this what's revealing itself for me is a lot of this anger that I thought was it her my mum? Is it him? Yeah It's pretty both, but yeah, yeah, because sure it's yeah, it's probably both, but I feel like I've directed I've been in therapy and it's all about mum. Yeah That's often the case like whenever we were on that beginning the beginning stages of that journey And we we start to like for me with the opposite those like because was dad was so overt Yeah, and he's very violent and like all that dad all that dad and then Once I equilibra really truly equilibrated that because I've been in conversations where I've said Hey, but I remember when you did this this that when that happened he completely denied it completely like remember when you know You smash my face into the wall and did this completely denied it. Did I remember this was your experience? Yeah Yeah, yeah, for sure and and I just laughed Was that peace with who he was? I kind of knew that's what would happen like I was okay with that I don't think he was genuinely lying. I think he just blocked those memories out. Yeah. I plus he's got some ourselves as well And this was a number of years ago, but even then there was early onset. Yeah, I could I could tell So you but the the play the way that one of the ways what what supports in my experience in getting you to the place of A consciousness of no problem. I'm not attached to how they respond to what they say and it's not it's not um Disassociation. It's not it's it's not a bypassing. Yeah, it's the conscious of no problem is deeper acceptance and non-judgment Part of that journey often is is being in the interaction of truth. Yeah like you being in your truth of hey dad I missed you when I was younger Okay, it was hard you not being around It was hard listening to mom talk about you in this way. I'm just gonna share my experience with you And now again, I don't recommend everyone do that and I'm not necessarily recommending you do it I'm seeding an idea and why I don't recommend everyone do it is because you've got to be really ready for him to say Fuck you. Yeah. Yeah, or for him to say what do you mean? I was always there. I was this I was there and totally deny it and essentially you know Gaslight your experience. No, we totally you know you could be ready for it Onto the that image of him so that I can maintain safety And if he that's your answer come then it would be probably the straw for me to have to actually be the man Yeah, that I know I'm here to be and stop talking about it in therapy and starting body Which is your your words in a different way And you're right there on the precipice. Yeah, brother. I've been working people 25 years I've seen this fucking thousands of thousands of time like you're so I know you'll be on the precipice But you know, it's just in the world you'll be on the precipice this podcast is called the you choose podcasts is about fucking just go and do and do the thing Yeah, yeah, you're you're more than right there. Yeah, and when you say more than right there Just give me the time for those what are those things right right there for what? For the truth Which is probably for a little bit of time is going to potentially feel like a lot more pain And a lot more disorientation and confusion But the truth shall set us free irrespective of what it feels like what's interesting for me I just one of the podcasts I was That we did earlier today. I was talking to the guest about The most common feeling and sensation I have in my body right now where it lives is here Information isn't it's an interesting information. Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, I believe that The world is for symbols symbology is our oldest language. Yeah, our oldest form of communication. Yeah on any level of being an expression in reality and this here I you know You tell me what you think it represents. Oh represents not saying what I mean. It represents repressed anger and frustration it represents The denial of what I actually feel because I learned early on that it's safer for me to deny it than to express it and so now I'm like I am Just continuously it comes up and it's like it feels I know it's on the tip of my tongue. I know it's there And it doesn't come it doesn't come and when it does come and this has been the most challenging piece for me in my current intimate relationship is I've never experienced myself be so insensitive than I feel right now. Well, that's a protective strategy man That's not you being insensitive or not caring or being narcissistic. That's you protecting your heart because You were scared and worry that the same shit that happened to you when you were younger is going to happen again Relationship. It's not you being an asshole. I don't I don't get that energetic from you the moment I met you out those doors I felt a very grounded kind gentle caring genuine human I Would like to you know, I don't get it right all the time, but I'd like to think I'm street smart enough Where I grew up and what I did and yeah, yeah, that's my at least that's my sense and experience of you I don't think you're being insensitive because that's your disposition or your malicious Thank you, but I will say this like That anger that you're feeling like they're there are practices modalities is Gestalt therapy. Yeah, let's break these down Yeah, for me, I felt like I never had to look at this because in my world of as an athlete It always just came out you made me a phenomenal. Yeah, I was like a ball You know this little fucking ball. Yeah, I start playing and it's like whoa when you do it all that and also your identity shifts as well Yeah, so what are the what are the practices now to be able to move through that and then I also want to go into when I'm in the Conversation because happening a lot right now when I'm in the conversation with my partner and I can feel it Come in and I can feel in the moment. I'm shutting down, but I also simultaneously feel like in the process of shutting down I'm losing the language to be able to communicate that I'm shutting Yeah, because you're moving into a sympathetically activated response. Are you moving into hypervigilance and survival? Of course you're going to your prefrontal cortex is shutting down. Yeah, like a reason and logic and creativity and compassion and Your meekless and fire like it's not it's shut it. You're literally showing down and so Part of not combating that but dealing with that is so let's let's let's Summatically we'll go to that in a second. So look at let's look at some of the modalities, right? And we want you to have to break these down you can people that are listening can you can research them some sort of difficult, but Family constellation work Gestalt therapy parts work in a child work Hypnosis timeline therapy work as an example, right? Obviously somatic therapy as well You can you can go through processes of writing letters to your parents and them not ever seeing you can again do very specific in a child Work you can be witnessed in your anger not with your parents gone You don't want to be going to your mom and dad and you know, I've tried. Yeah, that doesn't work. Obviously they're gonna shut down You're gonna shut down you and feel guilt and shame because of your previous associations, especially with a mother that you know You haven't resolved yet, so I just cycles that but you can do that with a therapist or a group of men or there's there's men's groups I'd be witnessed in your Vulnerable real expression that you deemed to be ugly. Yeah, start moving that through your body So you're closing loops on your nervous system that has intensity and trauma associated with it, right? But there's there's so much that you can do in terms of In that moment where you're shutting down the chance of you not shutting down aren't going to be from what you do in that moment It's what you do outside of that and so very very simply like super simple. There's true components of this Regulation practice and intentionality. Okay, so if foot for example every hour Once every once every 60 minutes. Yep, you pause what you were doing and You breathe for three to five minutes where you breathe Inhale through the nose for five seconds and you exhale through the mouth for 10 seconds That's just one example of Thousands of practically breath practice. Yeah, where you're just training your body to be more regulated So you've got your clocking more time and exposure in regulation. Okay, in a regulated nervous system Okay, over time I like that idea clocking more time. That's what that's really that's actually that resonates so much 100% Kick the ball against the wall a thousand times do it two thousand times do it three thousand whatever past the ball Keep the what we do whatever you're doing right throw the punch do the thing It's not just 10,000 hours. It's doing intentionality remember I said about intention. I thought you're intentional to what you're doing Why you're doing it how you're doing it over time? The space between stimulus and response your partner Stim your well the object in your environment not to objectify your partner the object in your environment stimulating something that's Familiar within you where you want to shut down it expands. Yeah, so instead of it being like that it may be Like that that extra time Give you an opportunity just to think oh hold on a second. It's happening. Mm-hmm. That was then. This is now. Oh I'm projecting my mom. Mm-hmm. You know my mother. Let me remind myself. You know my mother. Yeah I'm safe in my body. Mm-hmm Oh Then you can access a deep level of conversation What you're doing then is not reacting you're not in survival or compensatory strategy You're not feeding the beast of reactivity, right? You're not feeding her trauma train either So now instead of you escalating and her escalating to protect herself and you escalating again and her escalating You had an opportunity to escalate but you went And she is waiting to go but she goes a whole no second And now you both know me. Yeah, you meet now you meet it from a very different place. Yeah Now the tools of communication NBC and Margo whatever whatever tools you in your previous agreements How you communicate each other they have a chance to actually play out But all of that shit means nothing if you can't regulate the moment and you're not I promise you You're not gonna do it in the moment. It needs to be proactive and you need a clock time. Yeah outside of that moment For you to be effective in that moment. Yeah, you're not gonna fix it in that moment It's gonna be everything you do outside of that and fix isn't the right word But you're not gonna make adjustments or shift or change in that moment And unless you're doing the work outside of it. Yeah And it's very simple like the example I gave is if that's all you did great just reading As an example. Yeah, I mean again, you can use so many different techniques. You can do five and five. That's scientifically proven to The highly regular regulatory breathbox you can in health with the nose Oh Okay, physiological side that's very good as well. Do that for five minutes every hour. Yeah, I mean again You're you're exposing yourself You know once a week go hit the ocean walk on the beach sitting the waves lay down head towards the ocean Just 15 minutes listen to the waves Let your body feel what it's like to be regulated. It needs to understand it needs to have access to that And not just fast-paced life fast-paced life fast-paced life reactivity survival Don't trust anyone. Yeah, fuck the world, which is such an interesting concept for me because I mean what you just shared about me outside your perception of me is very grounded And I'd like to think that I've become much more of that but there is still that What can be honest with you. Yeah, so my perception of you. I believe is very true. Yeah It's also it's very in integral, but it's also a compensation Be and not man. I'll say the same for myself Like I can tell you the feedback people give me and I can very clearly say yes. That's it really who I am and yes It is a it is a reaction to the parts of me that are fucking volatile and violent and Erratic. Yeah, if I wasn't like this, I'd be like there is a part of me that I can even feel it here now That's like fuck everything. Yeah, but just burn it up. Yeah burn the whole fucking thing. So until you come to real peace with that like a real real peace With your addictions with I just want to burn it out that part of you that wants to be I'm not saying go burn it up But like really embrace that party that wants to burn it up Don't pretend it doesn't exist because you're clearly not because you just said it now like really embrace it What does that look like? Help me understand that because for me When you talk about addictions like I stopped having drank alcohol in three Years like the actual what might be considered externally would be the unhealthy addictions. I'm not on you know, but one of the ones that I know they have The truth by Neil Strauss. Hmm. I just think that book is unbelievable. I've read it, but I know Neil Strauss The game and the game is like one of the most popular books in the world for single man about being a woman his follow book The truth is about how he had to submit himself to rehab for being a sex addict and It's all about his dance the whole book is about his dance with understanding whether monogamy was for him Whether he wants to be you know multiple relationships polyamory. He goes to sex cults and he does all it does all the things I don't act upon the impulses of those curiosities for me, but I can feel them like Is man is man are going to me for me. I meant am I meant to be yeah? Is it am I okay to even entertain that desire? Well, that's the thing there when you say tangibly do it. So I didn't interrupt you, but You've got to be okay that you have those thoughts like really okay not judgmental. Yeah, I feel so even now I'm like Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I can feel that inside of me. Yeah. So when you say same like how like You you got to you so you got to meet yourself again with the consciousness of no problem of non-judgment of compassion of understanding of empathy towards yourself like Do you familiar with 12 steps? I'm familiar enough Hi, I'm my name is Steph and I'm an alcoholic and I haven't drunk for 15 years. I'm still in alcohol it Because there's a compulsion or propensity When intensity occurs in my life. I'm not an alcoholic. My alcohol is my thing. Yes. I mean other people's things. I have my own thing Is we go to that? We want to go to that. Yeah Maybe we we have when life is getting really pressured you have the sense of oh, I'd like to do this one I'd like to engage in novelty. Oh, I'd like to distract myself totally That's immediately where my nice head goes is like I need to get out of this committed relationship Yeah, and the way that I'm going to solve what I'm feeling right now is to go and have sex with the bunch of women. Yeah, it's co-dependent Yes, co-dependent action. Yeah, of course that when that thing happens. It will save me If this than that and I'll be okay So when you just admit that like we own like I have my version of that Just because I don't act on it. That doesn't mean I'm not addicted. I don't have addicted tendencies towards it. I would just have Maybe a greater value set or a greater integrity or I can and see and feel the importance, but it doesn't mean that doesn't live within me. The greater the pain that we feel at any moment, the greater the pleasure required to mitigate the pain often, 'cause we just don't sit with it, right? So when you learn to just sit with that and just say, "Oh, oh, there I am, having that foot again, "I'm wanting to go a stack of women "because I think that's gonna make me feel better." "Oh, there, I'm doing that thing and interesting." And you sort of meet yourself with that in a jetty. That's part of the conversation and acceptance. It's even, as I'm sharing this, I can feel the energy coming here. It's like, "Wow, this is what I am holding onto, "particularly in my relationship." And I, the guy we interviewed earlier, Brandon Collinsworth, he walked in and one of the first things we were talking about, he's in a really committed relationship right now, monogamous relationship. The first thing he said to his partner when they first met is I'm dating four other women right now. And then eventually they ended up being in a committed relationship. And he also said to me, he also shared, we were living in Bali, and when I go to Changgu, I come back and I tell my partner, you know, every time I go to Changgu, I question our relationship because of the women that I see there. But I'm in integrity. And for me, that feels like a foreign concept to even be able to bring compassion and grace to the part of me that feels that. And as a result, I feel like I can't present it in my relationship. Does that make sense? Of course. Until we get beyond the fear of judgment from others in rejection and humiliation from others, we will constantly wear masks and I'm not perfect at this either. But we will constantly wear masks and acquiesce to our environment or the people that mean something to us. And the cost of that is not being in our truth. And not being seen and not being known. And that causes often frustration, internal frustration, and the cycle continues shane and guilt and anger. And we, well, if you were like this, or if you just, what I would listen to me without getting angry, don't be so attached to if she gets angry or not. I'm telling myself this part of why I'm saying this to you, I'll go to whoever's listening. But this is the path. And like every time I've touched this path, I've really been on it. It's nothing but wonder. It really, yeah, love it. It's nothing but love. Irrespective of what happens, the outcome's irrelevant, totally irrelevant. But the act of being in your truth and owning it in a really compassionate, loving way. It's a game-change of it. And also probably one of the most hardest things to do. Totally. It also feels, in the moments that I do, it feels like my power is coming online. You know, like in the sense of life, you feel passive. And like, fly. And not a liar, but in a sense a liar, you know? But when it does come, if channeled correctly, it feels like, well, this is the man that I was wondering if I was ever going to be able to become. So more of those moments. And it's scary, man. I get, oh, what if my partner leaves me or what if, you know, we have a home together, we're a business together and what if that? And we start going down the rabbit hole of what ifs and it's more convenient to just suffer in silence or to not be in our truth. Yeah. It doesn't feel as much like I'm afraid that she's going to leave me. It feels as much, it's interesting 'cause I don't feel like I have the fear that she's going to leave me. I have, maybe it's more of a fear of real intimacy. Possibly, yeah. I mean, it's interesting to get to the core of what we're going to be shouted at. We shout out when you're younger. To all the time. Or maybe that I'll be perceived as what I am projecting my dad to be. Or what you were told you were. It's fucked up. Yeah, dysfunctional. But keep peeling that back like what does that, what does that, okay, so if she perceives you that way, and then what? I'm afraid. And then? I want to say I'm free. You're fucking welcome. Fuck. Can it be that simple? Yeah, fucking care. Wow. That's so profound. You're fucking fraud. I'm afraid. Fuck everyone. Yeah, for me. Then I'm free from that voice that everyone knows. Fuck, I feel like a fraud. Yeah, I'm a fucking fraud too. Yeah, you're free. You're free. Podcast over. Wow. It doesn't have to be more complex than that, man. Like this moment right now, like, okay, you may not have this moment for a while again, or you're not going to, you may not have this moment 100% of your, your conscious expression and existence, but this moment right now, you're free. That's all that matters. Totally. You were fucking God right now. I feel like, I can feel the sense of freedom because the biggest thing I'm afraid of is people perceiving me as a fraud. Yeah. And then what? I'm free. And that's all I want. So any of this one, especially an asshole. Oh, fuck. That's so fucking profound. And it's so easy, isn't it? It's so easy. It's like just name the thing you're most afraid of and then ask yourself what happens after that. Wow. What was that moment for you? I think there's many, many moments. Give me an example of a moment where, 'cause I mean, I feel a sense of kinship just having read your story, you know, and I'm not trying to compare mine to yours in any way, but I can find myself in it, of course. And I'm curious for you being much, I don't wanna say much older 'cause I don't wanna age you. That's all good. You know, you're over a decade older than me, you know, what are the moments in which you've come to recognize? Oh, this is the path to freedom for me. That man, being in deeper contact with the verifiable truth in the moment. Oh, I'm still addicted to escaping my pain. I am actually an addict. I don't go fuck other women. I don't go do all the things that I used to do, like in fidelity and cheating wherever. But there's still a propensity to when life gets hard. Like I had it with my teacher the other day. We had a moment where very similar to you, he says, 'cause I said, "Oh, I'm so like I'm addicted or anything." And he's like, "Hold on a second." And say more. So we went down this rabbit hole and I got to a place of, huh, you know, I'm an addict, huh. Yeah, I'm an addict and I was, (laughing) Oh, and, okay. So what? Oh. Wow. I was just, yeah. No shame, no judgment. And there's been so many moments, particularly with him, like this last, you know, call it six months, 12 months, just where we've gone down some very deep rabbit holes of my own psychology. And I've just sat there and I've laughed and he just pointed out to me every time. It's not just the laughing. It's just a genuine surrender of freedom, spacious. It's like, totally. And he says, you're doing the thing. You're touching person with your, you're in the consciousness of person. You're not in your personality. You're not in your ego. You're not in the stories. You're not in the meaning making. You're not, you're free. And so it's every time I touch truth. Like, but really, really, really touch truth in that moment. And it's on it. I've got, I've gone beyond like, oh, this is my permanent state of being. Like again, that's all perfectionism and, yeah. It's more the moments that I've felt it. This is an interesting dance for me because this, this is a high performer of course it is. Oh, yeah, of course. And in anything about the way I want to share this, in the personal development world, it's my experience that the opposite would be said to be true. When you stop identifying as the thing and you start identifying as someone else, you know, so I'm like, I can't admit that I am an addict. For example, I can't admit, but then there's this, there's this repression of that thing. You know, it's like, well, stop calling yourself the thing and you'll stop being it. But I'm this experience right now, if you're just labeling it, feels more free inside of me than it ever had. It's very far from it. Rolex, just, just, what's your reality right now? And it's not, this isn't about right or wrong. And that's one part, this is another part. You need both parts because two wings are the same bed, right? I'm just currently at this stage in my life, more like what's called a left hand path, which is more, more concerned with the verifiable truth in the moment. And it's, it's lesser now the judgments that come, all the labors that come from me inside. And there's a more articulate way of explaining and I do that in my book, but we'll pause that, put that aside for a second. Like, you just, you're touching into it right now. Totally. Like, that's what feels true for you. So just being that, this is verifiable. Like, it's your, your experience. Yeah. Like the truth is, I debate whether I'm meant for an anonymous relationship. I debate the context of my relationships often. When things get uncomfortable, I want to immediately run and have sex with all these women, like, that feels freeing to be able to say. And for you to know that I would never act upon that thing, but it's not, the pain is not caused by the actual thought, it's by the holding onto the thought. I'm not that, you know, that by trying to be someone around it, whether it's, you call it perfectionism or something else, but it's, it tends to be an image or a version of you that you think the world needs to see. When you just want to be able to, again, you hear this often, most people don't want to go and be with a whole stack of other people. Again, nothing wrong, nothing right with a ton about that. Most people just want to know that they can express that I want that. And that can actually be enough in this contextual example. But the underlying essence of that is, what is that really saying about human nature in that moment? It's about freedom of expression, it's about touching the truth in that moment. In that moment and being able to be yourself without an attachment to judgment and ideally not experiencing judgment from people that you love but without an attachment to it. But remember like we're talking about really, really high deep levels of maturity here in that moment. Like for, this is where agreements come into places where pre-established conversations are had about, hey, when I'm in my shadow or when I'm having this feeling or this experience and what I'm doing, you know how to be with each other because you're prioritising that. Because the reality is you may say this to your partner and let's just say she actually embraces that. But one day, she's having a really hard day and she hears that and it sends her over the edge. Right? Do you have to take that on? I don't know. Does that mean that the thing that you're desiring in that moment or be it coming from your personality, some horrible strategy, right, Mafia of the mind, what my teacher says? Or be it coming from there, does that mean you still have to now, you know, close up and shut down? No, the opportunity you have is to not shut down and to maybe be really compassionate with her and in that moment switch and prioritise her needs and go back and forth and dance with her. I mean, I'm not in the moment so it may be different in the moment but I can feel that just purely by the expression of what feels real for me, I will then have more compassion inevitably for her. Of course. Because you're accessing your own truth. You're not hiding anywhere. You're not spending so much energy wearing all these different masks trying to figure out what she needs, what you need, just being you and in doing so, you have a direct channel and access to her and she would see you ideally, so simple. We make things so difficult in my self-employed and so difficult, man, I know. The scene has stuck with me through all these years but has felt again analytical and is now starting to feel like well, that is resonating in a much deeper way was from Caroline Miss who love her work. Yeah, the TED Talk choices that can change your life and she says at the end of the TED Talk that Laias don't heal. Laias don't heal. She says so you can eat all the wheat grass you want but an honest person who eats cat food will go further than you and the simplicity of it all just feels like it keeps coming back to truth. It's all it ever was and always is. If you go back to any spirituality, any religion, cross culturally over spans of time, there are varied messages and one of a few messages that each one of those major religions, spiritual values, etc. hold is around truth. And the freedom that's associated with it or the truth that's associated with truth. Let me go into that for a moment because I feel like my question would then around that would be what is the argument for religion enforcing language and dogma that makes someone feel guilty for the truth that's inside of them. And for example, to put this what I'm sharing about relationships in a Christian context, for example, that feels like that in the church setting that would not be in accepted. Well, you've used some interesting terms in your question. You've used the word in force. You've used the word dogma. Think about those. You've used the word guilt. Those are extreme expressions of an ideology. I mean, religion to me is just a, it's a way to pack. It's like you have a podcast or a serious, you package it up in a particular way, yes. You package it up in a particular way. You market it in a particular way for it to be attractive in a very noisy marketplace, right? To be attractive to the people you think would want to really hear it, but would also benefit from it. You package things up in a particular way. Religion is just an extension of what already exists. Package in a particular way in its structure. We tend to want to do that in the world, right? It's a very masculine thing to do, not bad or good, but it can be quite a quite bad if we're going to work in duality for a moment, right? Because whenever there's dogma attached to it, or there's forcefulness attached to it, and it's the propagation of guilt and shame and enforcement of an ideology, it becomes more extreme in its disposition. It becomes a distortion probably of that original truth, right? Because when you go back to even some of the old Western mysticism, the original orthodoxy, it's an even agapistic ethics and cross-based ethics. It's different to what, say, modern Catholicism is as an example, and then again, there's variations of that as well. And so the more dogmatic and the more rigid anything becomes, for me, generally speaking, the more further away from truth it is. And so my invitation to you is, I think this was in Bruce or Mighty, the movie Bruce or Mighty, and Morgan Freeman said this, there's one thing I can't mess with, it's free will. You have the, again, totally big conversation, but you have the free will to not choose that. I don't be imprinted upon by that, don't choose that dogmatic path. I don't allow it to force you, you don't have such a feeble weak mind, but work on that so it doesn't happen. I don't mean that as a criticism to someone, but just like in Pat, again, how do I work on that? When you say work, like, help me for someone who I work as Catholic, I've been baptized. Yeah, yeah, I'm a Greek Orthodox. Yeah, I get you. Yeah. So how, when you say work on that, I want to work on that. Yeah, you're doing it, right? So, so I'm just going back to the simple things, disempowered, empowered. The more we feel or believe we're disempowered, we're hopeless, helpless or we're the victim, right? We're going to constantly outsource our power. So we're not going, and it's the paradox, right? But in order to stop outsourcing your power, because of relational beings, you're going to have to spend some time with people that want to empower you. That's a bit of a journey. It's going to be some trial and error. Work with a therapist, work with a coach, start a men's group, speak with your friends, like, ask to be challenged, spend time in your own solitude, be nature, slow down, don't be so busy and erratic, like, be with your uncomfortable feelings. That's doing the work. It's a constant act of self-reflection at the end of every day, spend 10 minutes maybe journaling or thinking about, was I a piece of shit today or was I a good guy? Yeah, you know, like, I'm being very similar. No, in the presence of guilt for me and in shame, it doesn't even afford me the opportunity to be honest with myself about how I show it out. Correct. I can't even, I'm carrying so much guilt, but there's no space for me to even be honest with the fact that maybe I was a dick. Yeah. And it'd be okay. Oh, I spoke to that person not really nice today. Damn, okay. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to do it better next time. Totally. I'm actually even missing him and say sorry. Yeah. No problem. Yeah. No problem. Yeah. You don't have to berate yourself. Make yourself wrong. So doing the work is that there's no specific thing that you do like, I'm going to go and spend seven and a half days at Joshua Tree and I'm going to come back and I've done the work. Whatever. I don't know. Yeah. I'm going to go do an AOS casserole. I'm going to finish it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Every weekend for the next 56 weekends. It's not. It's not, it's not that. It's, it's life is work. Life is doing the work. Just be self-reflective. Take ownership. Yeah. Moving from what feels disempowered into an empowered state, but not power overpower with. Yes. And again, like, I really believe unless you hold a pathology, but unless people hold a pathology, right, which is a very extreme or extreme distortion of reality. You have the answers. You know what feels disempowered. You know when you're being create, you know when you're being silly, you know when you're being judgmental, you know when you're insh- you know. And even as you're saying that, it's like my therapist calls it in Buddhism, he says the second arrow, right? And it's like, oh, I do know when I'm being the creep, but I'm allowed to just be like, I was being a creep. Yes. Now what? Oh. Oh. You're a human. Yeah. Yes. We all take on those forms of ways of being, which is the biggest thing I'm taking that being those things is not the problem. No. It's the inability to admit that I was those things. It's how we are with those things. Yeah. And that's the biggest challenge is how it's our come from, so firstly, our come from with our action. And then how we interact with that part of ourselves that may have a certain feeling about the way we were. And when we judge ourselves and shame ourselves, we're in a losing game. And again, the paradox is you may need some really good people in your life, healthy people that are willing to challenge you, but also support you. Yeah. It's like consistent. Yeah. It's it's hard for guys, man. It's so hard for guys. It's it we're hard for anyone to have really trusted respect that revere, revere, revere in people in their lives, and they can say, Hey, call me forward. Can we go into that for a moment, sure, I want to go into that. I've found in my relationships, and maybe this is a reflective of the places that I've danced, and I'm trying to figure out whether this is just a projection for me or whether this shoot there, coming from the athletic background. The relationships that I had in that space were very ambitious. And I felt inspired around, but they left depth, and when I left a professional sports career, I found myself in men's groups and spiritual spaces. and I found that a lot of the male relationships I had in those spaces carried the death, but they lacked ambition. And I'm like, and I don't even know the question I'm asking, but I feel like the hardest part of what I've found the most challenging is to find those that embody both. Credit. Credit. You're not wrong. That's often what happens. Are you see that in life? You see, you see the hyper ambitious individuals that lack the depth, the connection, the emotionality, the relationality, the maturity, the spiritual aspect of self, or you'll see the other end of that spectrum, right, of men that are, we use this case, because we're talking about men's work, we're talking about men, deeply devoted, deeply spiritual, but struggling to buy a fucking meal for themselves, right? So if you can't find a, by the way, it does exist, but if you can't find a creator for yourself, create a group of men that value purpose, that value being driven, that value wealth creation and abundance, that value a whole stack of things that you value, including spiritual depth and maturity, and that are willing and desiring to find homeostasis and balance in not completely in life, but in any given moment. And value, really value both, like value making, hey, I just made 100,000 bucks this month, and the guys around you celebrating that, and hey, I just proposed to my girlfriend, or I just had a really hard conversation about something always feeling and celebrate that, like create those groups for yourself if you don't have it as men. I think it's, yeah, the, what comes up for me in that space is, so this is the YouTube podcast, we're in the process of launching an organization called the YouTube Sports Club, which is there. A mentor and man will show to me that as man, we all need the spaces to go to and the spaces to come from. Yeah. There's a part of me that wants to step into that, to a space that I don't have to lead. I already feel like I'm leading. Yeah, great. Find it. Yeah. But put your fillers out there and find it. Ask questions, ask, where can I find these groups? They will exist. They may not exist in the exact way that you want, but then you know, your energy is infusing that group and contributes in the way that, you know, you contribute, but they exist. Yeah. Here's the thing, man. If you're thinking about, firstly, I value what you just said. I value making money. I value creating wealth and long-term sustainable wealth for my family, so my daughter is very well taken care of and also is instilled upon values around wealth creation and earning and everything else that comes along with that, but they're also really values human connection. Yeah. So I personally, I value what you're sharing, like I really value that. And the men's group that I'm a part of also very much values that, and we're like minded and likehearted in that way. And that was a co-creation. And we, there's seven of us. Well, we lead. We co-lead that, I should say. So you may have to just be mindful is that the personality that is looking for an excuse that lives within you to not find that is saying, I don't want to lead, I want to be, which is fair, fair, but just check. No, you're right. What I don't, what I don't want is the potential rejection of owning that I value those things and not being received. Fucking, of course, I value, I want to make a fuck ton of money, I want to, we want a massive organization. And at the same time, I do not want to do it while sacrificing the depth of connection that I have an old for myself. Yeah. How's it feel making that statement out loud? It's another moment of freedom. You're welcome. Not for me, I'm not saying that for me, when I say you're welcome, I'm saying that the truth is saying that to you. Totally. Like the truth is showing you what you want. I'm not fucking me, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, my throat's opening up and I feel it. It's all, it's all just, you can feel it, you're opening up. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what the truth is saying is you're welcome to being your truth. Like welcome to the truth. Isn't it beautiful? So beautiful. So beautiful. So beautiful. That's it. Like you just go to the core and even prompt you or nothing, but you just go to the core. You just go, oh, I'm actually scared of the rejection. You know, you're not scared of lady. Totally. I've, I've been close to me that I am afraid that if I was to presence that I want these material things in the world, that it would be, it would be push back in. I have a, I'll share, I'll share a story with you, a friend of mine. It was a really beautiful story. I think it was. And I'll keep it really short. But someone that he had recently met, you know, like, I don't know, I've known each other for years. So he said to him, Hey, man, I don't, I don't like that you talk about, you know, private jets and, and that this is what you want to do. And in, in 10 years time, you're probably going to retire and you'll have a hundred million dollars net worth or whatever like, like, oh man, I just don't dig that. And my friend was like, okay, cool. Thank you for sharing. I appreciate that. It's good information. Like, I don't, you know, like we value, my friend is very deep. I don't say that because I have a bias was I know him very person like he's a very deep human. And he gets after it. And he's fucking good at getting after it as well. And that was information for him. It was like, okay, cool. Like if you, I still want to be your friend and I actually enjoy your comedy. But if that's a problem for you, like, I'm not going to stop talking about private jets. And my friend doesn't even want to own a private jet. He's actually like, no, we just want to fly more consistently. And this is what it would look like. And this is the amount of worth I would need in cash. He's just, I love talking about those things because I enjoy it. If you don't, it's okay. No problem. Yeah. The message here that I'm getting is someone's perspective is not your reality. I said it better than me. And information is purely that information. And then you choose what to do with it based on your that you said, yeah, based on what's important. And I have to collapse someone's perspective and someone's information with what I have to do. That means any to change. That's what you do with your mom. How so? We used to prioritize her needs and not yours. Used to maximize her needs and minimize your loss in order for her to be okay. So you're just doing the same with the guy that may have your friend and may 100% that person. If it's Tay and I fucking appreciate it. Yeah. Wow. How good is that? So in that moment, right? That's when you ask like, how what's the work look like? Part of it is that. But in that moment, like you may even have like a somatic release. Like whatever you're doing, but also just making the connection is doing the work. Yeah. So I go, I'm just projecting my mom in that moment. Totally. And it's my little boy that's scared of her. I need to listen to that. Yeah. Yeah. That way your mom. That's exactly right. I would minimize my needs and maximize her needs to create my own safety. And as a result, I take another threat of the people's information and perspective of me of me as my own reality. You made assumptions. I guess to separate those two so that someone can differ in their opinion, but I can still have the freedom of my own. Yeah. That's not going to allow me to actually the biggest thing that the way this manifests in the world in my relationships, which is causing the disempowering male relationships is that I'm not comfortable with discomfort, uncomfortable conversations. And as a result, I can't call the men forward in my life. And you can't be honest. And I can't be honest. And I have to make my own relationships that are moving out back to that. They're not being fully honest about what I'm not doing. And you're not addressing the hurt little boy that lives in you in those moments that wants to have a voice, that wants to move from disempowerment over here to empowerment over here. And so in those moments, I may even pay to just close your eyes and talk to him. Talk to the five year old. Talk to the little one. They didn't know that, hey, it's okay. I got this. It's okay for us to be in our voice. This is mum's, this is not mum here. Like, we're big now. I got you here. I need to worry about anything. You can be in your voice. What do you want to say? That's the part of your psyche that's actually online. You've neurologically and psychologically and relationally regressed. Yeah. You've jumped back into her mouth in that moment. And you know the system. I feel that when I mean, the conversations with my partner when this comes up, I feel like I'm like four years old. There you go. Work with that fellow boy. She is, she's not going to trust me. She can't trust me. No, leader. She can't because I'm being a boy. And the more you do that, the more she will respond to that energetic. So the more she won't trust you. Totally. It's coming out. She can't. Like, how can she trust a four-year-old boy? You just eat totally. Like, I don't, it's not going to trust my four-year-old daughter. Like, I trust her intuition. I trust her body. I trust. She's also four years old. I'm a guardian. Like, I'm here to here. She wouldn't be the one protecting you. You know, you never allow that dynamic. Wow. That's so powerful. I want to zoom out for a moment now. Off of me and on to just a broad spectrum of modern dating. We'll just remember just to start in charge. You just say, I mean, I really appreciate your vulnerability, your honesty, your willingness, powerful and powerful, man. That's what makes you a great leader. No, thank you. And what you're sharing about yourself, you know, I see elements of that in me and I'm sure many, many people that are listening to this are going to feel sad. This is for everyone. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. And I've definitely felt more comfortable expressing that as the conversation's opened up because I can feel your acceptance of the part of you that is in me. Oh, yeah. And that's been beautiful. It's like, well, even when you just said, I'm an addict, all right? Cool. I still fucking respect you. I'm still like, how can I work with you beyond this conversation? You know, you know, you're my teacher says, man, he says I'm a real engineer, he says, we all suck dick for crack. We all suck dick for crack. What is that mean? I almost don't want to tell you because I know that I want you to figure it out yourself, we all suck dick for crack. Like we're all we're all pretending. We're all trying to appease others. We're all we're all pretending that the truth doesn't exist. We're all trying to make sure Everyone asks it's okay and not being our power and our truth. We're all masking what our real needs are. We're all pretending to be someone else. And the personality is just in the game. And it's not our real selves. Like we're all sucking dicks for crack. We're all doing the thing to get the thing that we think we need to feel at ease and to feel safe. - Yeah, and it's so beautiful to see through it, huh? - Yeah, it's so beautiful. - What's more beautiful is that every single person, person, every single person, every single person, you think's got it all together, suck stick for crack. - Metaphorically, it's so well-equipped. (laughing) - Every single person that you think's got it all together, suck stick for crack. - We thought Deepak Chopper was the king. - Yeah, now all of a sudden, you know? - Totally. - He's been ostracized and he's been, whatever it is. I mean, as an example, he's just racing, it's only here right now. - Not to jump on him or anything like that. - No. - No one's perfect, man, it's an illusion. It is an illusion. - Yeah. - And we try to uphold, like I often say that I'm, I'm, you know, pedestalized me. I do not have it all together. - Totally. - I make a lot of mistakes, I can be very mature. - Well, that's been the most beauty in this conversation for me and I think as we begin to expand and go more broad here is what I feel. The modern young man is absent of far too often in his leadership is initiation at the hands of another man who's older. - There's no right of passage. - No, you're right, you nailed it. Now there's no genuine, meaningful intention or right of passage for a boy to realize his own personhood, to realize his own truth, right? His soul's expression and to realize that it's okay that he's not perfect. 'Cause he's not and he's never gonna be. And that's okay, it's part of being human. You don't have to be perfect. - So in the absence of those, 'cause we could talk about it to a blue in the face, what do we do? - You've got to create it yourself. You've got to join men's organizations that have it. Like, what's the, man, I've-- - Sacred sons. - Yeah, Sacred sons is one of the most modern ones, but oh my goodness, I'm having a mental block. - Are you talking about a man's organization? - Yes, yes. One of the original ones has started in the 70s. - Is it every man? - No, it's a new one as well. Oh my goodness, I've done their work. Oh. We don't know, we don't know, we don't know, one of those guys that Joe Rogan has is like, "Hey, Jimmy, whatever you say, I'm just fine with the thing." Or like, look, look it up if you can look it up. - Yeah. - 1970s. It started in the 1970s, men's organizations. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I can't believe I've forgotten this, oh my goodness. Anyway, you find a men's organization, right? To help you move through that right-of-peasant truck. A mythoperic era of taking men that have lost themselves and never really found themselves and have disconnected from their own sense of masculinity and don't know who they really are and haven't worked with their own trauma, their own pain. Join a men's group where you can be more of yourself where you can be witnessed and seen. That's a real important part of the initiation journey coming back into maturity, coming into your own manhood. Many men just, they grow up so fast, so disoriented. So just, let me just take what the world thinks I need to be and then goes and does it and never makes time for themselves? - That's my story, in many ways. - Of course. - Especially being the eldest of four and I think unconsciously taking on the responsibility to be there for my siblings, as my parents, with the difference. - Of course. - I'm sure your mother put that pressure on you as well. - Yeah. - And in some ways I think that's why I'm the leader I am as well, because of what, yeah. - Yeah, there's gonna be value there and there's gonna be challenge there. - Yeah. - For sure. - I feel, I wanna ask you about the modern dating world. And I wanna read some stats here that I pulled up that were just absolutely insane to me. One in four men under the age of three. - Men con project, sorry. - Men con project. - Fuck me. - Fuck you. - You got a quicker than you. - What are you doing? - Fuck you. (laughing) - And I'm on brain slow, man. - Man, man, man. - That's what David treats it, unbelievable by the way. - They're great. - You've been amazing. - Of course, yeah. - Over a decade ago. - Yeah, like 20s I was there, yeah. - Yeah, I would love to do something like that. - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah. - Very good. - Yeah. - And there, and there, there, look. - I'm gonna put some resources in that. - Yeah, and there's the most perfect organization. Definitely not. There's work they, in my opinion, like a perspective that they could do to capture great audience, cater more for the modern man, et cetera. But there, the intentions there, there's establishments there. It's a beautiful organization. There's a lot of value. - Yeah. - Just start with a men's organization. Men's group in your local area, whether it's a man-kind project or something else. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I'm gonna read these stats. - Yes, sorry to interrupt you. - It's all good. - One in four men under 30, haven't had sex in the past year. Nearly two thirds of men under 30 are single, none of their relationship. This one was alarming to me. On dating apps, men are swaping rate on 60% of women, yet women are only swaping rate on 4% of men. So that means the top 10% of men are getting the bigger pool of women. That means that lower 90% are having to fight for scraps. One in five men under the age of 30 cannot identify a best friend. - That's the most alarming one to me, man. - Why? - Because loneliness propagates low self-worth and self-destruction and ultimately suicide. And just ultimately isolation and disconnection from the world. So you have one less potential, quite a quite good man, being productive and contributing to a society. We don't need less men in the world. We need more enabled, healthy, centered, grounded men that are doing there in a work. That's what I think we need. - It's a big statement in the context of the way the world may have, at least socially and culturally, portrayed what we do need, which is meant to stop being men. - Which I think is a fucking joke. - Yeah, it's a stupidity. Because when you, well, so firstly, I'm very clear on the harm and the ostracization, the suppression and the oppression of the feminine, of the feminine energetic that runs in our reality and of women in general. And we need each other. Before stock, but we just need each other to be healthier, more mature, more relational human beings. And removing men from the world, or removing women from the world, I don't see how that is healthy. Like, even philosophically, if you look at contrast, contrast exists to create richness in learning. Learning is a form of growth. Growth, expansion, love, and synonymous. - Yes. - If we remove contrast, male, right? Even to some degree masculine. Because the majority of male represents masculine, or male represents a majority of masculinity, so to speak, right? Then you're removing part of expression of truth, and expression of reality in this 3D level. So to speak, right? In this material world. Why would we do that? Everything, nearly everything we see around us, and again, like, I totally get this as, I have a theory on this as well, in part, and I'll share with it. But everything around us is built by men. Most dangerous jobs in the world are taken up by men. Across the board of almost dangerous job, most extreme jobs, most intense jobs, 90 plus percent, 92, 93, 95 percent plus men, the more men die in military than women. I'm not saying the men are better. This is nothing to do with that, right? Part of why I think men create in the world at such rapid rates is one, well, fundamentally, the thing is that it's a compensation. What I mean by that is, I watch my wife keep birth, and the way in which you go birth. And I'm a strong guy, and I'm very resilient, and I back myself, and I think I'm very capable in many different respects. And I'll never be as strong as that ever. Like what I witnessed was, I don't have words for it, magical. And my theory, if you like, is that, I think men as a species are intimidated by that. And as a reaction to that, to that level of creation, that's a godliness. But again, it doesn't happen without men, but we sort of miss that. It doesn't happen without each other. That's the whole point. But we miss that sort of retaliation to that. It was a compensation. Men have gone down, well, let me create in the outside world. Let me do really overt big things in the world to be noticed, to be validated, to be enough, essentially, because our worth is low. And this is more like an unconscious collective threat that has just compounded over time, right? Again, I'm not saying that there's no female architects, or there's no female builders or anything like that. It's the majority of those industries are occupied by those men. So we're creating in the outside world where a woman is gestating, giving life. I mean, it's fucking ugly. It's incredible, yeah. So I think there's a little bit of that. But this sense of men are worthless, or men are toxic, or masculinity is toxic. I think there's a lot of shit. What do you think? I mean, it's obvious that narrative is being infused throughout culture. Sure, but to me, if masculinity is toxic, so is femininity, because it's just two birds, two wings in the same bird, right? It's just the same coin. And I'm curious how you feel about this. When I see a lot on social media, purely because I'm in the space, And I care a lot about men and the work, this work, because I do believe that most of the world's greatest challenges are at the hands of dysfunctional men. Yeah. Should I believe that culture is in large part contributing to that? When I go online, and I see women talking about men, and those post-shares are going viral, and I plug the same thing in, but just flip, men and women, and think about the reaction in culture, if a man said that about a woman, it would be enormous, you know, yet it seems to be celebrated in our culture and, like, cheered on. I just think there's a lot of unresolved pain around that. There's a great deal of unresolved collective and individual pain around that. There are many, again, like, I've been this work for a couple of decades past, and I've had the blessing and the honor to work with both men and women in integrated capacities and just separately. And there's a lot of pain that women are holding towards a masculine, and some of it rightly so, like, they're moving through that, it's tough, man, you know. And again, like, as we've discussed at the beginning of this conversation, there are a lot of men that are holding pain against the family, and that we mistrust each other, man. And killing off each other is not, is not the answer. And when I say this toxic masculinity and this toxic femininity, just think of that masculine feminine expression as something that lives within every human being, doing BN, do this energetic expression, doing BNG, going flow energy, passive active energy, yin yang energy, it lives within all of us, right? And so we can absolutely express, human characteristics first, we can absolutely express masculine traits in a toxic way, like leadership becomes authoritarian, becomes oppressive, becomes autocratic. Totally. Like compassion, what could that become, that could become self-pity, that could become victimization. Let's do that for more. Yeah. I want to go into that as it pertains to why young men are looking at people like Andrew Tate as, for example, shit, and my theory is it's because he has a sense of authoritarian expression. Like, there's a feeling for a man who feels passive and weak that they look at someone like Andrew Tate. I don't feel like that's respect. So I want to get walked all over, and there's not many examples of the alternative. And maybe there's a perception that to become soft is to get walked all over. What's your perspective on, how do we dance with that in culture and how do you see the relationship between, I'm dancing around the question, what are your thoughts on people like Andrew Tate as male role models for men coming up in the world? Serves purpose. He says, "Some shit that makes sense." Sort of video of him yesterday was commenting on Iran and what's happening in Iran and what's happening in global politics and geopolitics and if it wasn't him saying, I was just someone I didn't know and I was listening to them, I would say, yeah, I agree with what you're saying. He makes sense in some areas and he doesn't listen to me, I don't agree with it. I don't watch enough of his stuff. I mean, I've seen a lot of these, he's been one of the most viewed persons on the internet for in 2025, I believe, or 2024. So I've seen enough of him, but I think he serves a purpose. I think it was a sense of honesty in him that feels attractive and magnetic for a man who's coming up. And a couple of that with ex-fighter and he's got a lot of access to resources and wealth, the video clips that he puts together and all of it's very deliberate, it's very package marketing and that's very attractive to his avatar, to the person he's speaking to. And the person he's speaking to is the person that is passive, that feels weak, that feels disempowered. So that person is looking, it's all the same man for everyone, I'm disempowered, I want to be empowered. Now, how we get there is many, many roads to the top of the mountain, they're just choosing that one because it's very attractive and in your face, and it's very appealing, isn't it appealing to have seven Bugatti's and living in a enclosed mansion having all the women that you want and cash, cash, cash, like that's very appealing. Totally. And we'd all be, I think, the people who are denying that it's appealing, god, denying it's a lie. Of course, it's appealing. Yeah, it's a lie. You get to a place where that's something only thing that's appealing, but I'm not saying it's always going to be appealing, but for people that are on the beginning of the journey, for people that are just really feel disempowered, it's very simple man, disempowered. That's going to be very attractive. And if he's offering, hey, for $49 a month, you can get access to my ex-University, wherever his university is, and we're walking through how to do this, how to make $10,000 a month, how to feel more confident, how to, they're like, well, $49 a month, I don't know much to lose, and I get to be in a proximity of that, and I can learn from, well, yeah, I'll do that, but I'd quite wouldn't know. Totally. The graphic you're speaking to, impressionable young men that don't have sincere, right-of-passages, that haven't been initiated, that feel lost, that you have society telling them they're worthless anyway, and that they're swiping and they're getting nothing, so they're constantly getting rejected. They're addicted to pornography, they're addicted to fantasy, and what they could have, that comes along so well-packaged it serves a purpose. Ideally, what happens is that those young men in some way, I say, ideally, ideally according to my values, man, like, let's be real, like, ideally according to my values, they find a way out of that into a different part. That is more productive, less selfish, more harmonized in themselves. There's greater homeostasis that they feel. There's more equilibration on there. Actions aren't coming from wounds and repressed and suppressed fears and traumas and bad experiences that they've had growing up like, ultimately, but that may not happen. I mean, and who tight man is that there's meaning in other hand, who tights? He's just. I think there's something polarizing in a world in which people are afraid to have an opinion about somebody who has an opinion. Especially when you ostracise, we just went through, we've just come out of a period of cancel culture. Totally. Like, I don't think we're completely out of it, but we're largely out of it. I think we're 97% of the way there, but I think there's still some PTSI from that. A PTSD, like, from that still. And so, when you see someone like that is unapologetically themselves and, like, really fringe, that impresses most people, well, it repulses a lot of people as well, but it's going to repress. Does it only repulse the people who have not developed access to that inside of themselves? Like, for example, on your website, it says, "I have aimed to be a voice for the voiceless." I'd like to think that some. The reason Andrew T. himself is controversial is because, in many ways, he's saying what many of us want to say to don't have the boxes. He's being a voice for the voiceless. Yeah. 100%. In a different way, but, sure. Absolutely. Yeah. And I also like that about him. Yeah. I like. Look, and how far deep down the rabbit hole, not conspiracy, but do we want to go like, is he a plant, is he working for some three-letter agency? Yeah. And all of this is a set up. Yeah. I mean, potentially, it occurs more mass hysteria and confusion to essentially elicit more controls from my tinfoil hat on for a second. Yeah, let's go. Like. Like, go. Who knows? Is he working for it? I don't know. The ocino family, I don't know. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Yeah. I'm just being facetious. No. But my point is that all of this, again, back to what I said earlier around, it's information, man. Yeah. Like, people get to choose what they do with their information, or with the information is being presented to them. They get to choose, do they want to, at some level, not completely, but at some level, keep avoiding themselves by choosing this high, high-level material path, which is what Andrew Tate is offering essentially. Yeah. So I don't think Andrew Tate is offering deep philosophical, spiritual introspection. Hmm. I don't think. I could be completely wrong, right? I don't think so. I don't think he's offering a way to really be free from the bondage of our past. Like, I don't think he's doing that. Would you say that it sounds, I mean, in some ways it might look like he's still in a lot of his own. I would say, yeah, yeah. Oh, 100%. In my, I was a pressure professional opinion person, but in my evaluation of him, yes, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of compensatory action that takes place as a result of not addressing some of the dysfunction that he grew up with, particularly around his father. Yeah. What I'm hearing you say is from the perspective of a young man, a young man who's looking for a sense of initiation that's absent, that path is not a bad next step to find a sense of empowerment. Yeah. Yeah. Just like, um, just like certain dating techniques, aren't necessarily a, a bad first step, like you mentioned Neil Strauss, right? And what the kind of dating he was an advocate for, again, the men that attracts, that never attracted me because I never felt disempowered in that way in that arena. Yeah. But the men that attracts, that attracts is very low, confident men, low confidence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Men that don't believe in themselves, which is a reflection of the police he came for. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. These techniques, right, to hook women, to feel, to have sex room for them to want to have sex with, or to, for them to, those women to desire them, right? So they can feel adequate, codependency, unresolved, wounding, playing out, compensatory strategies, survival strategies, right? It's not bad. Yeah. But it's not sustainable, and if it is, it's disassociated and disconnected, it's not real intimacy. But it also sounds like the way I'm hearing you describe it is, like, for many of us, that has to be the first round of a ladder for us to then. For many of us, yeah. You know, it's like, we can't get to the deeper spiritual evolution until we have that place. It's a journey, man. You know, like, there would be an argument to be that Neil Strauss couldn't realize he was addicted to sex until he went on that path. I think it's a fact. Anything is an argument. I think it's a fact. It's a fact. Well, it's a fact because that's how it happened, right? So it's factual from that perspective, and for most of us, I think we're the collective consciousnesses, we have to hit rock bottom, we have to move in extremes in order to come back to equilibrium or homeostasis. I think we can evolve out of that because the Dante will tell us there's two ways to learn through direct experience and indirect experience. Yeah. I think we're very consumed by direct experience right now. It's not wrong or right, but there is potential capacity for us to learn and evolve through more indirect experience or learning through others and truly not having to experience extreme dysfunction in order to grow out of that dysfunction. Yeah. Help me understand this. I heard Chris Williamson on his podcast, model wisdom, talking about his concept of unteachable lessons, like money will make you happy. You don't actually love that girl. You just think she's art and you want to have sex with her. Are they Jenk? Do you believe that those are genuinely unteachable lessons or can we learn those through the experience of other people, or do we have to go on the journey to get those things before we learn that? Where we are as a collective consciousness, it's the latter. We have to go on that journey rather. We have to viscerally experience it in order to reject it or in order to know that that's not the path that we want to take. Do I believe, though, that it's possible to get to that place, that the former place that you said, where we can look at that and be self-reflective enough and say, "Oh, I actually don't want to leave my partner. I just want to have sex with that girl because I'm uncomfortable with some news that I got and whatever, you know, or we're in conflict or we haven't had sex for a month or whatever. So we have the capacity to be that reflective. So we don't need to then have that experience and go, "Oh, I shouldn't have done that." But I don't know where we're at with that. We're still very much in our infancy as a species, spiritually, I believe. Sure, you have your friend, you know. What does that mean? We're very, very much in our infancy as a species that we learn the hard way, but we have to hit rock bottom to learn. As a species. Yeah, just generally speaking, and even then, we still don't learn. What do you envision that looks like? We learn and grow from our choices and we don't have to repeat them. We're on constant repetition. We're just cycling repetition. I suppose what I'm asking is, when you say we have to hit rock bottom as a species, what do you envision that looks like? Oh, I mean, I think we've had a fair ball in there. Oh, yeah, of course it does. It's an integral part of our reality. I think anything that's integral and spoken about and given energy and attention to plays a part, right? Well, I think we've hit rock bottom multiple times, we just still haven't learned. How long has destructive war been going on for millennia upon millennia upon millennia? Right? Even since the 40s, when nuclear weapons were actually executed, delivered upon, like we're still at threat for, like we still talk about it. Like China was talking about it the other day, if America does this, we will go full force. Like what does full force mean? Full force means that full force of what they have capable of, which is nuclear, but we're still talking about it. Like we haven't learned. We haven't grown. And we may not, like we may use the Peter Pan syndrome, but in culture, but in mass culture. We never grow up. And we may never grow up, but I believe there's a potential for us to grow up. There is a reality that we choose as collective and as individuals, and of course, the individuals are part of the whole, right? Where we move further and further away from those hard lessons, they need to be repeated over and over again for us to change. But the time collapses, so instead of it being one million and one hard lessons, it becomes 100,000 lessons, or one lesson or ten lessons, whatever, you know? Yeah, totally. So when you say this potential for us to grow up, if you had the golden ticket and everyone was listening to you right now, when you're on a stage, seven billion people listening, and you have to give a speech on how we grow up, what do you say? Oh, it's a lot of pressure, man. Interesting question. What do I say? Well, I'm talking to, you know, seven billion very different people in terms of what they're able to hear. And I don't know what I would say, I'd have to give that some thought because there's levels of maturity and awareness that live in that seven billion state of collective mind that are varied greatly. I mean, that's the reality of it because if it wasn't, we would, you know, if we ended with Ken Woolberg's work, Ken Woolberg was pretty prolific. I think he's very underrated, never in mind. Anyway, you know, he gives an example around consciousness and technology and culture. And basically, you know, if there's seven levels of consciousness, we're maybe at level two or three at the moment. And we're playing with technology that is far more advanced for our maturity to be able to hold and handle. And so like you're speaking of seven billion people, eight billion people, how many people on this planet, they're all at different stages of their own evolution and the vast majority of those people don't know where they're getting clean drinking water today or tomorrow. How do you speak to those people? Well, what philosophy are you going to share with them that's going to impact them? And then there's those that have abundant access to resources and don't really care for anyone else. I'm not saying every billionaires like that, it only means, I'm talking about a disposition. So you're talking about people that are living very vast realities, different material realities. And unless there's a, there's a, and I'm not advocating for, you know, universal basic income or universal basic living standard, although I'm not advocating against, I'm not advocating for a very long conversation. I don't know how I would speak to those people. I mean, I would, I would, you know, I would want my, my instinct would be to say, go within. What you're searching for lives within you, but when people are in a high level survival mode. Totally. I'm not just talking about, you know, people that are living on the outskirts of a ruined town somewhere they don't have access to water or, I don't mean to be stereotypical, Jesus example. I was just speaking to the person that, you know, he's homeless and living on the streets in New York or here in our backyard, like when people are entrenched in survival and then pathology comes with that because, you know, out of those seven billion people, you bet, you best bet there's a good amount that are pathological. So I'm just being honest with how, you know, I can't give you some idealized dream answer that would be, you know, Michael Jackson saved the world. Totally. I mean, we're, we're, we're, we're, this planet's amazing, man, and everything that it, it has is amazing. We're also really fucked up. If you had a choice to come back or not knowing what you know now, being on the human plane, would you come back? Yeah, what's my choice of where I'm going, what's my, yeah, so if I'm not here, where am I? Oh, that's a good, that's a good follow-up question. If I'm not here, where am I? Yeah. Where would you be? Well, I don't know. I mean, you asked me the question, he's telling me, I love this world, man. I love this planet. You love it. I fucking love it. Yeah. I love nature, man. I love, I told you I came back to the ocean. Like I love. Yeah. I love it. Beautiful. Yeah. I love my family. I love my friends. Yeah, I expect, I mean, I love aliveness, you know. So just give me, there's a, there's, let me, let me, can I ask you something? Absolutely. I'm going to ask you a question, right? Yeah. So this, this question I'm going to give you, so I'm going to paint a story for you. So in one of the first programs I created called Chaos to Clarity and such a, so typical of me was like, 150 modules, yes, yes, it was ridiculous. Like a one year program, oh my god, it was like three modules per week was ridiculous. Anyway, and in one of these modules, I, I described this story right, so I'm going to ask you the story now. And so my, my invitation to you is to answer the story and it's very different wherever you are in your life. Like I may, I may tell you the story and ask this question in five years from now and the answer may be different. The answer is pretty simple as well. It's like, yes or no. Right? That's the answer. But I don't want you to overthink it. I just want you to say yes or no straight away. Got it. Okay. So I'm going to paint the picture first. Oh, never. Okay. I really like this story. I mean, I like it. We say you like it. No, I'm putting it out there and people may say, we're sorry, but I never fuck you. You're living your life as you are and you say to yourself, you know what, I need, I need some time. I'm going to, I'm going to take two or three days and I'm just going to be with me. And we'll say Joshua Tree because we mentioned it earlier. Yeah. You're going to take a drive up to Joshua Tree and you're just going to be with the stars. You're just going to camp out in your car on back of your tray. If you have a truck, whatever it doesn't matter, you're just going to relax for a little bit. You're going to bring some food, do some hiking. It's a good time of the year. It's not too hot. You're just going to be with the stars, be with the Milky Way, just going to be, right? And you know, first night in you're relaxed. You're nervous. It's just debriefing. You know, from the from the life and you just. decompressing and you know I see you as a fairly solid existential thinker you know you're feeling you feel your way through the world you're quite deep in your thought process and you're just doing that you're with yourself you're just some solitude second night you're there you're looking at the stars also shooting stars and you see this light and this light starts to move in ways that don't look for me that doesn't look like a satellite or a plane or anything and it's zigzagging you just think okay well that's that's interesting I've never seen any aerial vehicle do that right and then you realize that oh that's a that's a that's I don't know what that is so nothing doesn't look human but okay but you're not scared you know you feel really calm and and there's something that's happening in your mind and your heart and your body that is is just aligning and then you see this light and drops to the sort of horizon right because you're in a plane's mountain in the background but drops in the horizon it comes towards you and as it comes towards you you can really make out it's very silent you make out like it's so quite an interesting object not one that you've seen before maybe but you you've seen in on TV or movies or something right and it's sort of just lands about 50 feet away from you and it drops and again you're feeling very calm this isn't nothing dangerous about this you have no you're not paralyzed you're very curious you're very open in your nervous system a door of some sort opens and three beings come towards you I'll let you fill in the imagination what these beings look like massive balls foot tall what an avatar ask whatever you're seeing but they they come in peace right for lack of a better term and you feel yeah and they start communicating with you telepathically and they say to you we've come to you because we value who you are and we have an offering for you and here is the offering we can give you access to all the knowledge all the wisdom in the cosmos in fact we can even provide you with time travel you can go back to any place anytime in this history and this timeline and this planet but we can also take you from galaxy to galaxy to galaxy across the infinite vast cosmos in fact we can even bring you to other planets with other living beings we can in print upon you all the knowledge that it just lives in you all the languages that have ever existed wherever we went you would be able to communicate connect with other living beings like us and so many others that live you would have access to all the technologies all the secrets of this cosmos this planet and everything that's ever existed we would even take you to planets if you want that have to share such a similar genetic imprint you that you could procurate with them as well and you would be able to have what you call on this earth a family anything you wanted you would be able to touch anything anything you ever dream of abundance forever if you want if you wanted to live forever you could you don't have to but you could we would give you that gift if you wanted it you could take it back after a while if you wanted it as well whatever you want a mortality immortality it's yours that's ask your question okay I'm now I'm speaking as well that's asked your question once your answer yes but there are some conditions you have to come now you can never come back and you can never tell anyone you're going do you go yes or not no okay that's how much I love this earth now you asked me 10 years ago before my daughter the answer was yes for me at that time in my life her life's pretty good oh that's so powerful it fucks you doesn't have I could get a emotional thinking you could have everything but you have to get rid of everything that's already here that you take for granted now yeah and it was such an easy answer I felt it was an easy answer boy they felt like a very true answer what the fuck what was your answer no was yours yes 10 years ago I mean I've asked for question multiple times but it's been yes many times yeah do you think someone who is in a state of depression it's more likely to answer you versus someone who has a thriving family there was a movie who was the guy forgetting ceremonial you know that guy that like what a movie great move you know you know you know Jason C god so he's it so he's in this movie the weather outside is the other yeah it's so good he's a great like that he's in shrinking as well shrinking so yeah so he's in this movie I come with the movies called and I haven't even seen it all I've only seen parts I got to watch it again but basically in this movie they figure out um this is shrinking no no no this movie from like two years ago from Jason Jason C god in cigars in or whatever his name is but basically they figure out there's an afterlife right and so suicide rates just go through the roof because there's an afterlife and so people are like I don't like this life I'm just going to kill myself and there's the afterlife so think about how many people hate their life or dislike their life and at the promise of what I just said to you you know which is what Andrew Tates offering essentially not that but he's version about do you think people are going to say no to that when their life is shit or when they perceive their life to be shit or when it actually is just really fucking shit yeah so we've got to get beyond all of that first man like I can't talk you can't talk to seven billion people and till we get on a more level playing field and again I don't know what that looks like geopolitically socioculturally physically spiritually so it's not overwhelming work but it's a lot of work and it's also God's work like and when I say that I'm not defusing responsibility I'm still connected to my path to my journey to my expression to my creativity to my service to my contribution to the planet that doesn't stop for me and I'm delusional if I think I can control all that we're insignificant simultaneously significant and I think it's something that's worth embracing and what about the I don't know why this is present in itself for me but I'm going back to you being on stage in front of seven billion people and you present this story yeah when there's a split you know some people say yes some people say no the people who say yes just end it and they go to the village and they go now the planets left with all the people who've said yes yeah you said yes this thing yeah yeah yeah it's interesting that's interesting isn't that that's what you'd say maybe that's well I got some goosebumps so maybe that's it maybe that's that's the thing that I would say that's the story I would I would give and people have the choice you want to go go go bless you that's great but that's you got me thinking now man wow I mean that changes things because you're making it there's a I mean call it an assumption but I guess a level of reality that says the people that are here really want to be here yeah I mean again there's going to be some fringe circumstances around that maybe people are scared to leave but they don't really want to be here but they just said no whatever but I think you know let's assume all things being equal because it's a hypothetical anyway that the people that are here really want to be here they're not completely pathological they're not desperate they're not destitute they're not you know super power hungry they just love this planet and they love their life I mean that's a different conversation we're having collectively isn't it well that presents a conversation about even the concept of suicide sure like in some way are we and this is a really I don't even know a part of me is afraid to ask this but are we saving people who are ready to go maybe yeah I mean I totally understand you know I've been on the brink of suicide myself many times yeah I like I totally get why it's it's a legitimate option totally get it's it's again like it's not so complex for me it's the greater the pain we have in our lives that feels unresolved the greater pleasure we need to mitigate the pain bypass a suppressor move away from it not feel it right and suicide is just the ultimate expression of that so this pain's too much we can end it may not be pleasurable but I need to end it and for many people I think it's not it I don't want to say it's a logical deduction or conclusion because there are a good amount of people that when they commit suicide a pathological and mentally ill so to speak about but I can see how it's a very easy choice for so many do you think is it selfish to stop somebody doing that when they think it is best yeah what a question you just sit with that for a moment and what I will say is that this desire to you know save the world or impact quite a quite many there's nothing wrong with it and at some level it's a little futile and I think that the biggest impact we can make is just being with ourselves are healthily being selfish and then the people that we impact people that come into contact with us we impact them just from a healthy disposition or mature disposition. and Brian, I think that's really all we can do is just be with ourselves, just to some degree. But to answer your question around, is it being selfish by stopping someone from killing themselves? Sure, I think there's anything in everything we do is selfish. We live in our bodies, in our own mental, congregate staybuckers. Yeah, selfish does mean it's bad. It's also self-less. Yeah, what's up to you? I didn't want to do it. Yeah, I really didn't want to do it. I really didn't want to do it. That's not what I wanted. I was running out of the pain was so much, I didn't know where to go. It reminds me of, and I don't know where, how this really applies, but it reminds me of a quote I heard from Jack Nicholas, one of the greatest golfers ever about winning on losing. And he says the secrets of winning is being okay losing. And I'm curious if that applies to life, like the secrets of living is being okay, Diane. That, and also the secret to living is okay being wrong. It's okay not being perfect. It's okay being a liar. It's okay being an addict. It's all of it's okay. No problem. But what you said, yeah, the secret to living is not being afraid of dying, for sure. I mean, it's, you see it again, cross-culturally, to bed and book of the dead, Egyptian book of the dead, every, not, maybe not, I don't know. So many ancient cultures had very specific practices around preparing for death, embracing death as a part of the, the journey that, that physical death was not the end. Whether that's true or not, that's not relevant. What's relevant is the value that was placed on that and us not pretending it doesn't exist. But rather, yeah, it's an integral part of life. We are going to die. That's okay. So, everyone, as we are beyond time, then you've got to get back. I'm going to finish with a question that I love this question because I think, in fact, rather than describing why I love this question, I'm just going to ask you a question. You've put out thousands of pieces of content across all different mediums. You now have a daughter that you raise in a daughter, right? Just one. You're being enough in the world. If everything you have ever shared got removed from the public forum, and you had 60 seconds to leave something useful to the world, what would you say? I don't know if I'd say anything. I don't think the things I say aren't that, I don't say it's from a place of low self-worth. I don't think that the necessarily revelatory or anything that hasn't been said before. Sure, I say things in a different way that may attract certain people, let someone hear it in a way that really lands with them. But what I would, if I had 60 seconds to live, with the people that were in my proximity, I just want to breathe with them, just hold them. Allow my presence and my nervous system to print upon them, the love that I have for them. What they've meant to me and what hopefully I may mean to them, but what they've meant to me, 60 seconds of words is one of my presence, my physical presence. We've said so much today, but if there's anything that stands out as the biggest thing that I've taken from you is how much you value the experience over the words. I feel in every setting your body when you say you love this life, that you love this life, and I'm sure it's been through hell in moments to get to this place. And heaven too. But that answer I think is so symbolic of maybe how we in the world overcompete and overvalue the words and undervalue the actual experience. I think we often do that. I mean, myself included, man, I move so fast that I just don't stop and call the roses, you know, just slow down and just be amazing. For the people who are watching this and they want to know more, I mean, I want to know how I can fucking hire you and then worth it to you. And I'm so glad you live in the city, Mary. It's so good. There's optionality to explore that, but where, and you just read a book, you didn't turn down. Yeah. Where could people buy the book, and then where beyond that can people find you and what, what do you have on the calendar, what's coming up. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, tuned in and turned on book.com. And there's a stack of bonuses that come with that. And it's, it's just, it just takes you to Amazon or Barnes and Noble, wherever you want to buy the book from. But if you buy from Amazon, I appreciate it. If you like the book, leave a review. It's an audio in my, in my voice. I should have recorded in your voice. But you can get it there. You can find me @steffanossafandos on, I'm on, you know, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc. But I'm mainly on Instagram and YouTube as well spend my time. I'm starting to spend more time on YouTube because it's more long form content and some stack as well. But that's going to be later on for ridden, for ridden work, yeah, ridden pieces. Yeah. Steffanoss, thank you so much. Appreciate you, my friend. Bless you.