How To Stop Betraying Yourself & Be More Authentic - David Sutcliffe

how do you come to think about the role of authenticity in a good life well I I guess I try to be as authentic as I can I don't know if that's a thing that we can ever do perfectly and it it we can't we have to be Discerning about where we want to be authentic but as long as we're making choices meaning I'm not going to show up at work and always be my authentic self there's always a mask that we're wearing but if I'm doing that consciously then uh then I can still maintain my authenticity for me authenticity is really just truth can I be in the truth of who I am which takes a lot of work because we don't always know who we are and we have habitual thought patterns and responses to life that causes I mean we're authentic to those but to be authentic to ourselves to go after exactly what it is we want um to be present all the way maybe that's another way to define it being present in the moment which is a really hard thing to do always being present there's so many ways that we we leave you know whether it's through distraction or drugs or alcohol or pornography or we get lost in our mind so part of authenticity for me is just being embodied being here being present being in the moment telling the truth as best we can and I think that's empowering I think that leads to an empowering life and and uh you know it's really what I try to teach people you know how do we find our our authentic self I know it's an overused word but um I think that's what we're all longing for because when we're aligned in some way within ourselves we're true to oursel and that feels good so even if things go badly at least we're true to who we are we're making our own mistakes not you know some not being Guided by some idea of who we're supposed to be or what we're supposed to be doing and I've I've certainly done plenty of that in my life I made a commitment early on if I'm going to make mistakes I want them to be my own mistakes I want to learn from oh that's such a cool idea the the idea of making a mistake in it not even being yours painful painful well I learned this as an actor because when I first started out in Hollywood you know you get there and you think that everybody is knows what they're doing and they're smarter than you at least that's what I thought and uh you know so you listen to a lot of directors you know tell you how to play scenes and um it got to a point where uh you know I I would see the scene and and I thought yeah I don't think that was the right choice now it's my face on the screen right so if it's not resonating it people aren't thinking about the director they're thinking about me so there's a certain point I just decided to take ownership of everything and occasionally you'd get into conflict with directors but the choice was I'm I'm I got to do it my way uh I want to listen of course um to what people are say saying and take that information in but ultimately I have to do it my way and liver Di by it is there an interesting feedback loop between authenticity and confidence it seems like in order to be able to sort of stand up for yourself and to have uh faith that your Intuition or your instinct is right you need to be confident in it and then presumably the more that you do that the more it feeds back into confidence but as with most things that kind of spiral they also spiral in the opposite direction which is the longer that you live out of authenticity the less confidence you have in being authentic and the less you know what authenticity is which makes it harder to become so on and so forth it seems to me like that's the kind of dynamic that goes on yeah I think that's absolutely right I might use the word faith having faith in your inner impulses uh you know to to stay in the the uh television and movie acting references there's a when I was growing up I was a big fan of John cassavetes and he was the kind of the original independent filmmaker and his just films were wild and raw and crazy and he had a he had a great career as a mainstream Hollywood actor but his films were just something else entirely and he had this quote about all these people um they go to Hollywood and they start getting into commercial projects and they say one day that they're gonna do something creative they're going to do something artistic do something true to themselves but they never do because once you buy into that and exactly what you're saying once you stop listening to those innermost impulses you you start to forget that they're there and so that had a huge impact on me and I've done my best not perfectly I don't think any of us do it perfectly to live by that to live by that inner intuition those inner impulses like that that that thing that is inside me there's a knowingness that we all have and Only We Know It And if we start asking everybody you know is this okay is that okay they're going to be maybe they'll be able to give you some legitimate uh reflection but at the end of the day I think anybody who's successful at a certain point they stood alone they just went on their own intuition their own gut and they took a risk and um and that's how they became successful you have to you have to follow it the more you do the more confidence you you have in it exactly the less you do it the more I think lost you become what would you say to somebody that feels like they haven't tapped into that authenticity in a while is there is there anything have you got any prescriptions or advice for how someone can begin to start listening to that little voice that maybe's been drowned out for a long time well this happens with my clients all the time and I give them an exercise and I have them list like things in their life where they had an intuition and they did it and it worked out and you'd be surprised how long a list everybody has right so you're trying to encourage that kind of thinking but it requires faith it requires a deep faith and you know I'm a big believer in in synchronicity I mean it just I don't know how it works but it's seems to be real on some level I don't know if it's just a a trick of my mind or you know back in the day they used to look in the fire right and you look in the fire for a sign but what are you really looking for you're looking for your own unconscious to be reflected back in the fire so you can trust what you see that it's not it's not a an image necessarily in the fire that you're seeing that's separate from you you look at the fire long enough you can get into a meditative State and suddenly your own unconscious is going to be projected onto that fire and the thing that you see is something that's actually you and so practices like that like meditation I think are very valuable or the the thing that I do it's like with Mexico you know I'm gonna move down to Mexico why am I moving to Mexico that's crazy I don't speak SP my wife speaks Spanish but it just seemed like such a a a big leap but I ask for signs I do this every time I ask for signs and and I got them like that the week after I asked for signs the three people that I know in Mexico all came up in conversation with strangers it's like we ended up knowing I'm like you know that guy I know that guy yeah he's a friend of mine lives in Mexico like that in the same week that kind of [ __ ] happens to me all the [ __ ] time I can't explain it Chris I don't know what it is I'm sure there's a lot of doubters out there but that's how I do it when I have a strong intuition I ask for signs and almost always I get them is that for one of a better term is is that a mature man's game not a young man's game well I think so I mean I've been around I'm 55 I've lived a life ups and downs success and failure rich and poor and you start to learn how to um just go with it all go with the flow and then when you look back you see that there was a logic to all of it like it was all working in your favor somehow even the the tragedy even the failures and I think ultimately you know you go back to authenticity and confidence and I said the word faith it really is about faith like that's what I've learned at this point in my life like your faith will make it so and the faith in something like a faith in yourself or or a project that you're engaged with like there's a there's a vibration there's an energy in that that um I think makes things manifest and it's also very attractive somebody who has Faith um and so you end up attracting people to you because I think when when you're in that state everybody wants that who doesn't want to have absolute Faith right like which is trust right which is the absence of fear and I you know to use a a sports analogy I was used to be a hockey player and you know I was okay but um the worst thing was coming up against a guy who had absolute faith in their ability or that they were going to win like you just realize I can't knock this guy off his game there's nothing I'm regardless of their ability the faith was kind of more important exactly and that that I realized was the strongest quality in a player you don't want to come up against a guy who has absolute Faith there's a uh a Bill Burr quote that says you're going to be fine and even if you're not going to be fine isn't it better to just exist thinking you're going to be fine until it's not fine and then when it's not fine you can just deal with it then but it makes no sense to ruin right now yeah billur is a is a very a wise man that's that's how I am with the belief in God I mean belief in God makes me feel more powerful so why not believe in God it's really that simple for me I mean there's there's other things for me I've had experience it's like the productivity bro Pascal Zer right exactly exactly exactly God is on my side just uh sort of thinking about the opposite side you Ed the word fear there it's something I've been kind of obsessed with this year why why is it that fear is so sort of prevalent in that way why do we see threats where there are none why is it that we're so concerned with that and what's a way to get us to sort of move out of that fear-based perspective well that's that's a that's a big question I mean it goes back probably to to Childhood I mean we all have fear we come into the world we're vulnerable totally helpless totally dependent that that's a scary thing and um if we don't get the Attunement we need the love we need the Comfort we need the needs that we need um there's going to be fear there and so um I think it's built in in some way like this this feeling of like I'm not entirely safe and I and I you can have the best parents in the world but um I don't think there's anybody walking around who doesn't have some kind of issues or or fear around unconscious fear on their own safety that they then project on to the world and then of course we live in a culture particularly with the media that um weaponizes fear to keep you watching to keep you under control and so you know I'm I'm reading uh the screw tape letters right now and it's it's you know all about the devil essentially and it's all about fear if you can keep a person in fear you can control them so fear is really the biggest battle that we're all facing and um we don't want to feel it that's really um what it is like if you're not afraid to feel what are you actually afraid of right and so we we we do so much to avoid feeling our fear and so one of the practices that I've done and is and I encourage other people to do is to constantly put yourself in situations where you're confronting your fear and then go through it and feel the pain Panic feel everything that comes up and then on the other side of that you realize very quickly it was all an illusion it was all in your head it wasn't real in the way that that you thought it was so you know how do you confront it you have to take risks you have to be willing to to to move towards your fear there's really no other way to do it and to understand that there's a very strong force within you you know which I call the the lower self you might call it the shadow that um is afraid and is doing everything that it can to uh what it thinks is protecting you so it's going to convince you it's going to tell you stories all kinds of stories about why you shouldn't do that or why that's a scary or or why that that woman that you want to ask out is probably a [ __ ] so what's the point or it's never going to work out this is the voice of fear so you have to start to understand that your negative thoughts are actually just the voice of your fear and then understand that the culture is trying to keep you afraid and so it takes a lot of work I mean I think you have to work every day uh in some way to uh mitigate against all of that fear is that a topown solution is that a bottomup solution is it something else because I think there's a tendency for perhaps the sort of people that listen to shows like this one uh to think that they can think their way out of an overthinking problem or think their way out of a feeling problem and um I'm not sure whether that's possible no you can't you can't solve a problem of the mind with the the mind it has to be through action you have to be willing to take action you have to do something different uh the mind is tricky the mind is not a reliable narrator of your experience that's that's one thing that I I've come to understand I don't I don't necessarily trust my mind particularly when I'm in a state of anxiety or fear or confusion that's when it's the least reliable it's most reliable when I'm feeling good when I'm feeling aligned um when I'm feeling connected let's say and so um you know I think yeah you ha you have to be willing to do things right take risks take action um move your body in in some way um I mean you you probably know this because you know huberman talked about a lot this this um when we're in a a fierce State um we're agitated or frustrated or whatever it is if you go for a walk it's solves the problem instantly because what are you doing you're walking forward in space so that's telling your brain there's no fear there so you can be lost in something that's overtaking you that's consuming you negative thoughts and you can go for a walk and literally five minutes later it's clear so that tells you just a walk can solve most of your problems talk to me about the cost of betraying yourself about not being fully honest about allowing that lower self to to take over Mo so this this is really I'm I'm going to say this a lot this is the heart of my work I said my clients make fun of me I'm like this is the most important thing you have to understand um but we all had to betray ourselves as children in order to stay in connection and in favor with our caregivers there were certain things that they um wanted from us and so we gave them that um and there were certain things we intuited or were told directly that they didn't like about the way that that we were and so that betrayal process um starts at a very young age that you know the primary survival strategy for any child is to stay in connection and favor with their caregivers so they they have no choice but to betray themselves so that self- betrayal becomes a pattern right it becomes a way of being and so we believe that we have to have to betray ourselves in some way in order to stay in connection with other people so the the unconscious belief when when we do betray oursel or abandon oursel or don't speak Our Truth or give ourselves away whatever phrase you want to use is what we're actually afraid of is the disconnection from from the other person which on a primal level is is a threat of course because we want to stay connected to the to the tribe we need to stay connected to other people to survive and so the illusion that we have to shatter is that you can actually stand on your own that you can tolerate the feelings of disconnection you can tolerate saying something or doing something and feeling the disapproval from from your friend or from the world or from your spouse and that you're going to be okay like you're it's not going to kill you um the way the unconscious mind thinks it thinks it would as when you were a child and so that's not an easy thing to do first you have to understand that you are betraying yourself and because it's so habitual very often we don't we're just left with a feeling of we're angry resentful um we don't feel empowered in our life some you know the the world out there is somehow controlling us and we're at a effect to our environment those are all signs that we are betraying ourselves and so once you start to understand that then you can take some self- responsibility and the question I ask in in all these situations with betrayal let's say oh I have a client show like you know I was betrayed my girlfriend my boy whatever did said this did this and the question I always ask is was there a moment before the Betrayal where you betrayed yourself like was there some intuition some Instinct something you want to wanted to say but you didn't say and every time that's always a yes it's like why do you say it because I was afraid afraid of what well afraid of how they're going to react and so we all have that right and so it's just it's just a practice it's an awareness first and then a practice um because it's the only way we really can be free right if otherwise we're we're modulating our Behavior based on the external world based on you know how other people are going to react we're you know we're caring what other people think but it's really deeper than that is that why the fact that the self- Betrayal begins in childhood in relationship with your caregiver typically is that why relationships are such a breeding ground for this to come up that exactly it's now mirroring the the first time that this happened yeah I mean you're going to heal all your childhood wounds in your relationship um I'm finding that out and it's it's It's Tricky it always comes up I'm projecting my issues with my mother all the issues from my childhood on to my partner all the time and she was doing the same to me and it's you know we it creates this confusion it cat his resentment um we get at each other and fortunately you know she's pretty aware evolved person so we're able to get to the heart of what's actually going on for both of us and then come back into to Unity but it's really about self-responsibility it's like how am I co-creating this there's something that I'm doing there's some Distortion I have like I believe this thing is it actually true like I didn't I grew up my mom left my father left my stepfather and then and didn't really attend to my needs during that process I mean she was overwhelmed she was very young and I felt like hey you know is anybody want to check in with me see how I feel about this so my conception of women was I don't trust them and they don't care what I feel and so I walk into a relationship and that's I'm looking for evidence of that everywhere and I'm building a case against her and any little thing that she does that confirms my belief I point to it and then I stack it up until I blow up and I'm like you're doing this you're doing this you're doing this and and maybe she is doing some of those things but um my reaction to it is completely out of proportion uh because of my history and because of that I'm not actually seeing the good things that she's doing I'm not seeing the ways in which she is in fact very trustable and so we all come into relationship with those kind of distortions just going back to that authenticity Point sort of folding that into relationships how much room do you think there is for self-editing in a relationship I think discernment is the key I don't think you have to share everything in a relationship that's that's that's my feeling but um you have to be careful that you're not hiding because if you're hiding something it's going to be felt right and if you're hiding it out of Shame that's going to be felt and ultimately it's it's going to it's going to come up so I think you know and we can we can um dilute ourselves we can rationalize oh I don't need to share everything with my partner I don't need to share this is not really important um but oftentimes it's that that kind of vulnerability is is terrifying right to really reveal who we actually are uh to our partners and I think for men particularly it's like to reveal that sometimes you're just afraid you know that that you um have fear about whatever you know and uh there's something may be shameful about that and and the reframe for me is that if you can take ownership of your fear um and uh sort of be with it you know um and not put it on her not it's not you're not asking that she take care of it or do something about it but it all what it does is it it brings you into presence right because she can feel that something's going on and so if you can name it for yourself and contain it within yourself it actually creates safety right that kind of vulnerability is really important the the difference is if you're Fred and you're looking for her to be your mother and take care of you or she has the instinct to want to take care of you because you're afraid um which as a man you you want to resist that because you don't want her to be your mother but I think that kind of vulnerability is is really important I don't think you have to share all your you know troubles with them all the details of the thing but if I'm having a bad day I want to make sure that my wife knows that it's not about her so I want to give her some kind of indication like what's going on for me be present with her because that's what she's longing for she's longing for me to be present and if I don't reveal myself in those moments I'm not present and if I'm not present she's going to be agitated she's going to create a story in her head that she's done something wrong or she's going to be upset or angry and something's gonna happen so that's 10 it's not exactly an answer to your question but that's that's how I think about all that stuff I guess we've got this sort of strange balance between betraying yourself to maintain a connection with someone or or to not have to open yourself up or whatever but then if you do do that this person isn't in connection with you they're in connection with this projection that you just put forward but then there's also the sense of well you need to be Discerning like you don't need to tell them about your new athletes foot protocol you know whatever it is that you've got that's going on chronic flatulence in the office today honey like some things perhaps are Best Kept For the Boys uh but as soon as you open that door the discernment it is a it becomes a decision right you need to make this sort of editorial choice about what what what is it that I'm going to do and that can become a very slippery slope a lot of guys can use that to excuse ever having to open up uh and then you end up hiding things that you probably shouldn't really be hiding and then you start having expectations that are unspoken resentments because you wanted this thing but you never said it and yeah that balance between uh betraying yourself and then ending up with somebody connecting to a person that you're not is a a very dangerous slippery slope I think for a lot of guys yeah I agree you see that a lot in the um the kind of red pill Community like never share your feelings with your woman and I mean I understand uh they're reacting to uh the opposite pole of that which is there's this movement um to sharing everything with your wife like that she's your best friend and you want to open up you want to be vulnerable and it's it's important that she sees you feel and that creates connection and intimacy and and and and you know I'm a therapy guy so I I I I can relate to that to a degree and I did that you know when I first when I started therapy and especially into my training and that's all you're doing is revealing yourself over and over and over again and then I would do that in my relationships and it took me some time to realize like no that's too much like I don't need to be sharing all of that with her um so I have to be Discerning I have to be able to contain things within myself I think that's a real practice learning containment which is not suppression or repression there's a difference obviously uh there's certain things yeah I have I need to take to the boys and there's risks I have to take with my wife that are going to be vulnerable right there's things that maybe um I need that I need to express to her or the example I just gave that I you know that there's places where I I feel afraid right now um the the whole game for me is as I said is presence like if you are not present with her then she's not going to be happy she's not going to feel safe and so you have to find find a way to be Discerning but share enough so that you're present so that she can feel you she has to be able to feel you if she can't feel you she doesn't trust you because you're actually not trustable if you're not in uh in touch in some way with what you're actually feeling you're not trustable and the reason why is if you suppress your emotions or you rationalize them in some way you're going to act in compensation to those feelings in a way that's not authentic to you right and that's going to create problems for you so it's really important that you understand know without shame what it is that you're feeling and you know how and when you choose to share that with her is ultimately you know is is up to you why is self-compassion so hard we want to have our own back if nothing else if we're going to do containment we need to be both a like a firm supportive school teacher and also a a pretty sort of Ruthless prison Y at the same time I suppose uh but we need that self-compassion why is that often quite difficult to access because it it it comes into conflict with um a lower self aspect of us that believes that we are bad and what do I mean by that well going back to what I was saying earlier about we we have to um repress or deny or disassociate from certain aspects of oursel in order to stay connected and in favor with our caregivers well the child has no discernment no consciousness right it's the parents are God and so they're going to make the Assumption they're going to draw the conclusion that those parts of them are bad like that part of me is bad and so most of us I would say all of us but I'll say most of us have some place inside us that doesn't trust our own inherent goodness right that there's some part of us that's bad and it's usually you know deep in the unconscious and it can be masked by a kind of confidence or bravado but most people have to some degree of Shame and so that um that part of us that thinks it's bad uh it wants to continue to tell ourselves the story that we are bad why because that's what creates safety for us and meaning that this part of me right let's say for a guy it's my aggression okay a lot of guys think their aggression is bad they've been told their aggression is bad so if I show my aggression I'm GNA get in trouble like mom's not going to be happy or the world is not going to be happy or my girlfriend's not going to be happy so we make that part of us bad so whenever it comes up we're going to tell ourselves a story that there's something wrong with us I'm out of control I need to work on this some something that it's not okay and so it takes a a lot of work to um to sort of override that to accept and maybe this is why on a deeper level it's hard to accept the depth of our shadow it's hard to accept how cruel we can be it's hard to accept that all of the insanity that we see out in the world that's horrifying to to us also exists in us and maybe we don't act it out in over over ways but sometimes we act it out in in in subtle ways uh all of us are capable of Cruelty and you know given a certain set of circumstances like would I have been a Nazi maybe probably I mean I don't know so that lives in me and I think it's very hard for people to come to terms with that and accept themselves there generally what we do is we suppress it because we want to create an idealized self-image that we're good we don't want to know that part of oursel and so it's in the place it's hard to be compassionate for herself it's really hard to be compassionate uh from that place where there's there's this deep rooted belief that there's something about us that's not okay yeah something wrong or broken it is odd that I don't know I I can't think of a much a much less functional belief than that it's it's not really going to contribute to having a flourishing life or thriving uh and yet it's so endemic to most people especially uh people that are high performers yeah well there there's and I understand it you know there's there's a belief that if I'm hard of myself like I'm going to achieve more right having that that militant General in your head and I and I think that's useful I mean I want a tough coach I loved tough coaches I love coaches that pushed me um and who were clear and if I wasn't meeting the standard they'd let me know I like that and if they were disappointed in me they also let me know um but at the same time if that coach doesn't have the capacity to um love me to be there for me to see me as human right and to to transcend the the performance or the goal and go underneath that I don't really trust him and ultimately it's going to unravel and you see these coaches those hard act coaches they don't last long uh they move from Team to team you know it's like a little bit of medicine that maybe that team needs for a couple of years but then they move on right so I think we need we need both both things we need we need um uh we need to push ourselves um but we also need compassion for ourselves and and again you know it's easy to rationalize like again the mind is very very tricky and so it's like I could take the day off today things like that and so we want to mitigate against that so it's it's a really really tricky balance and I you know I struggle with it all the time right like where is the balance between pushing myself and self-compassion yeah uh it's strange that by continuing to whip yourself into submission and push yourself harder you become successful in the only way that other people can judge you which is outwardly uh but nobody really sees the personal price that you've had to pay to get to the position that you're in and that means that a lot of the time the tradeoff uh it's a one of the metrics is observable and another one of the metrics is hidden and you will almost always trade a hidden metric for an observable metric because people will happily spend an extra hour and a half daily commute going to and from a job that's one rung up the ladder higher and another 15 grand a year in terms of annual revenue but what have they lost in terms of sanity and sleep and time with their kids or the relationship quality well those are all hidden metrics the observable metric is what your job title how much did you earn per year where did you go on holiday last year and uh yeah I Do's this cool Insight I learned from an evolutionary psychologist about how um ancestrally there's two ways primarily that leaders uh ascended within tribes so one was through dominance and the other was through Prestige so dominance being more tyrannical uh more top down more authoritarian and Prestige being more egalitarian sort of voted by the group uh one that's come maybe from the bottom up now what's interesting is that you need different kinds of leaders at different periods so it seems like the more domineering uh leader that's top down you want that person in times of war and conflict because they're decisive they're ruthless they'll Garner everybody together every needs to get on the same [ __ ] page or else we're all going to die okay like stop [ __ ] about Johnny but then the other side the problem that you have with that and I think that I I'm certain that there's a parallel when it comes to sort of way that we treat ourselves the problem with having a tyrant is that when the war's over you've still got a [ __ ] Tyrant and the prestigious leader the one that's risen from the bottom up he's raising everyone else along he's able to play the game he knows what's going he's not going to get a look in because this [ __ ] tyrannical top- down authoritarian bastard has now surrounded himself with siop fants he's fortified himself mhm and I really think there's something to this about how we sort of treat ourselves and I think that but the most obvious place is when you begin doing anything and you're on the Launchpad of self-growth or or understanding discovering who you really are getting your business off the ground leaving the city or the country that you don't want to be in anymore leaving that relationship getting out of the family that you don't want to be in whatever it is like you need to use whatever fuel you can get a hold of and it's kind of like you're in war like if you're going to make something happen from zero you're at total the RPMs are at zero the miles per hour at zero there is nothing there's no inertia or momentum to carry you off and you need to rip this [ __ ] off the Launchpad one inch at a time you could probably do with someone that's good at going to war the problem is after you get out into orbit and you're just floating around you go I know that that was a really useful mindset I know that that tyrannical leader was one that I needed to domineer over me but I really wish he would [ __ ] off now but unfortunately he's still yeah I think that's that's exactly right um different energies different qualities at different times in our life but I I agree with you if I was going from uh zero trying to get into shape I'd want a hard ass [ __ ] uh driving me all the time I don't know screaming in my face exactly that's gonna get me there as quick as possible I'm gonna learn something about myself um but then once I arrive and I'm satisfied with where I'm at maybe maybe that energy wants to shift so it might be all Al like I mean while you were talking I was thinking about the balance of the masculine and The Feminine it's not exactly what you're saying but you know there's something about that too and and both are necessary at different at different times you know you need that strong masculine force and sometimes you need that comforting feminine Force you said earlier on the reason I asked about the uh mature Man versus the young man strategy is I'm 36 now so I guess I'm kind of straddling both of them and um I I get the sense that when you're starting out with something you really need to be a bit more prescriptive and you probably do need more of a drill sergeant than an eart tole uh but as you start to accumulate a little bit of instinct and experience that is precisely the thing that's hard to replicate so not only are you allowing yourself to sort of aggregate all of your life experiences you're finding more ease you're finding more play you're you're um competitive in a manner that other people simply can't do because unless they've had all of the experiences that you've had in precisely the same sequence with the reflections that you've got for the amount of duration of time that you've done it for they can't be you there is no blueprint that can work that back because frankly kind of like YouTube's algorithm open the Black Box they don't even know how it works you don't even know how your own Instinct works right um and I'm I'm just fascinated at the moment you know I spent a lot of time when I first started this show seven years ago very much productivity bro uh the five daily step routine that I need to do to ensure that I get my sort of three month Sprints and my one-year goals and my fiveyear vision at all the rest of the stuff it was very prescriptive it was very rigid it was very compartmentalizing it was very useful and [ __ ] it worked uh but I'm really interested now in what a more sort of fluid easeful version of that looks like one that does allow me to use Instinct and aggregate all of this experience a lot more and um I kind of get the sense that that is moving from the the Tyrant across into the sort of benevolent leader and uh that's kind of how I've got it in my head yeah no that's that's beautiful um well you're 36 years old you're at the height of your powers you're you know you're it's not your time to be self-reflective it's you know you're attacking you know and that's what you should be doing you're just following your energy you're following what you want to do right later in life you can look back and and and and maybe make sense of it all so and I was that right um and right around your age I started to think there's something else right because I you know I went to Hollywood and you know I was hungry for it and I went after it and it was thrilling and it was exciting and you know I was making money and meeting all these people and having success and then there got a point where I just like there's there's more and I didn't know exactly what that meant um but that's when I started on this this journey that that I've gone on um but I can tell you now at 55 uh my approach to life is completely different and it goes back to what I was saying earlier it's just instead of like make it happen I I think let it happen it's G to come to me I want to be in the flow I don't want to force anything and that was very hard for my ego to come to terms with you know in the driving seat anymore yeah my ego was screaming like what the [ __ ] man impose your will on the world bro and that's a very powerful feeling and I did that and it feels [ __ ] great when you impose your will in the world and you get what you want um but that is a that is a diminishing Supply and it it at a certain point you want to just experiment with doing something differently like what's another way to meet life like there's there's more information out there and you know um like I'm in my wise man years apparently uh which is sort of weird because you know I I have some wisdom I've aced along the way but there's another part of me that's still trying to figure it all out and make mistakes but there is there is something about what I just said like having faith letting it happen um that life is g to unfold that you're not really in control of things um and the more conscious and present that you can be the more you're going to see the entirety of everything and um and of course as you get older into your paternal years you're let you've climbed the mountain you know what that feels like you have that satisfaction you're in a different place in your life where you want to you know hold things you know what I mean help other people and uh share what you've learned and uh it's deeply gratifying I I mean I'm just coming to this because that you know I was pretty aggressive and and um uh ambitious in my youth and I still am but I approach it now as an older man in a completely different way it's so interesting saying getting what you want from the world imposing your will on the world again it's that sort of domineering energy uh but one of the things that it it assumes a lot of things the thing that's so funny that it assumes is that you know what's best for you to want how [ __ ] like narcissistic are you to think that you know what's best for you yeah yeah and uh I'm that's something I'm I'm very much sort of Leaning into now again a lot of parallels being able to make things happen agency having a vision bringing it into the world breaking through it smashing through whatever barrier it was that you thought even you know small mundane boring successes thought patterns that you never thought that you could get past or or belief structures that you thought that you were going to have or ways of seeing the world or or aifi social networks that you were just adamant would would kind of always be there uh and breaking through those is very very impressive but yeah I I get the sense that I am not necessarily always the best adviser for what I need in the world and that maybe maybe maybe just having some faith and getting out of my own [ __ ] way and again this is the only thing that you can do I appreciate that this might sound like a sort of opulent position to be in but after a while after you've accumulated enough momentum and inertia with good habits and good routines and you kind of have a sense of you know everything's moved from system two thinking where it's very deliberate into system one thinking where it's a little bit more sort of automated you have to assume that most of the things that are going well in your life aren't coming because of what you're doing consciously you did all of the conscious stuff before so it's like right okay why are you gripping so tightly yeah to it now why are you sort of holding and why are you that adamant that you actually have that much control over the outcomes that are coming in any case how much of it is in tension and fear and rumination and and and concern and anxiety and worry and how much of it is just that you've accumulated some competence and over a long enough time Horizon people tend to get what they deserve because they roll the dice enough times well I I can only speak for myself but I think a lot of us go through this um time when we realized that that what was motivating me was not what I thought yep yep uh I thought I wanted it for this reason but in fact it was something else and and for me it I realized at about 37 that almost everything that I was doing was to win the love of my father and I didn't I didn't I you know I I learned that in a uh a process like a you know I do this you know sematic therapy called uh core energetics and you know you you get deep deep into your feelings and um this was not something that I was aware of at all but in the in this process all of a sudden this awareness came and these thoughts came that you know I played hockey and it was like I I said these words like I play hard for him and um and then I thought what else am I doing in my life to win his love be my dad wasn't wasn't around and and I thought well if I'm doing it for that reason I'm not actually free and what is it that I want to do and that was a real crisis point in my life I don't think we can avoid it I think we all uh want to win the love of our father we want to please the father I think that's built in so I don't I don't necessarily think it's wrong but once you've uh achieved you know I I I I did what I had to do my dad was proud of me I'd achieved that um but then the rest of my life like what am I going to do with the rest of my life well I want to do what I want to do but what is that because I've been driven by this thing for so long it's overtaken me I've created stories around it uh for the reasons why but what what is it now that's a very uncomfortable place to be um because you're let letting go of everything that you you thought you know everything you're attached to your entire identity and you have to go on this hero's journey you know let go of the known world enter into the uh the unknown and uh it's [ __ ] scary and uh that's why you know going back to what you were saying you know I had this thought this is you know this is why people need therapy I think uh it's not even necessarily to solve a problem that you have but just to reflect you back to you in the places where you may have distortions or blind spots because when somebody is talking to you and they're kind of full of [ __ ] you can feel it right you can feel that they're off just a little bit and a good therapist is going to be able to sort of name that for you and then lead you back to yourself like I don't give advice to my clients I just try to reflect what I see back to them and lead them back to their own internal Compass their own internal wisdom that's the best I can do I heard the other day eventually you just get sick of yourself yeah yeah so good a lot of sort of refers to a lot of things I think first off uh that sort of selfish energy that you were talking about before the the you can't really be in service you can't really have that sort of paternal Pay It Forward thing because it's still all about you even the kids are about you even little Timmy's performance isn't about Timmy it's about how does this reflect on you it's not about it's not about being narcissism yeah yeah it is and uh you know in many ways that is a [ __ ] powerful energy again and it will make you incredibly successful in the only way that we can all be judged which is outwardly but I think you know whether it's will bearan Transcendent include or or you know alchemizing it into something else eventually I mean [ __ ] it you know you can get through your entire life uh and and and sort of get to that stage perhaps we have a new president who has managed to do such um but it'll carry you a very long way but I'm not convinced that that's the energy that you want to be using for the entire time I don't I I think it's a toxic fuel when used long term and I think that there's sort of more holistic and interesting ways to to get there especially after you've burned the first couple of rocket boosters filled with that like me energy and then okay well what's next MH I had my most um satisfying experiences when I played hockey when I didn't concern myself with my stats um or scoring goals whatever it was when I conserve my myself with how can I be useful for this team like when I made that switch like because sometimes I was playing with a lot of really good guys and I wasn't as good as them and I was like I have to figure out a way to be useful and I always found that um those experiences to be the most satisfying because I was I was part of something and and sometimes you're appreciated sometimes you're not but you have this own internal appreciation so I I I think you're right I think real maturity is understanding that particularly as a man um that uh spiritual fulfillment psychological fulfillment comes from being of service that you have to you know give your life um to something bigger than yourself and and serve that thing and um I think you know unfortunately the culture is uh you know we're very much lost in being famous and being successful and all the outward things you were talking about but um that's that's the switch that I'm trying to make again my ego gets involved it's like what about you bro what about what about what you want want um but you also are less neurotic that way when you're not thinking about yourself you have less anxiety because you're just focused on on giving now not in a way that you're betraying yourself as we talked about earlier you have to be Discerning you have to take care of yourself but if you're oriented in that way I think it's I think it's ultimately a lot more satisfying do you think that there'll ever be a way to communicate to people that becoming rich and successful is not going to fix your problems no I think you got to you got to find out on your own I did you are dude it's it's [ __ ] wild like you know I've been I've been fortunate enough to be around some of the highest status richest people on the planet over the last few years since moving to America all of them have got problems all of them are [ __ ] up I was thinking right okay well if that's if that's the trajectory that everybody wants to be on and you know for a fact that the people that are there have still got maybe maybe even more of the problems you know they they've got layers of expectation and resentment and uncertainty and pressure and scrutiny and all of this stuff piled on top of them and all of the [ __ ] that they had when they were still poor yeah and there's just no I I am yet I'm yet to find an effective way to communicate that external validation will not fill an internal void yeah that's how most of us or or oriented that's what we see you know because they look so happy you know we get this curated version of celebrities or influencers but I you know I know the truth because I was there in Hollywood I saw what's going on I was like these [ __ ] people are crazy I I couldn't believe it it would it was shocking to me how incredibly neurotic uh and they were and and and wonderful people and and Brilliant and all of that you know as you're experiencing but um you know it doesn't take away your problems it's one thing I appreciate about Ben Affleck I mean he talks about this wide out in the open he's just like I hate being [ __ ] famous can't do anything I'm I have to live in this [ __ ] box and none of my problems went away like I still am have to live with all my problems and maybe in some way it actually makes it harder because it certainly gives you it certainly gives you less sympathy yeah right like at the very least the people the people at the bottom that are miserable will get sympathy from everybody but the people at the top that are miserable just feel like like how Bourgeois how luxurious of a position to be and to have all of this do you not know many people would kill to have that do you not if I was you I wouldn't I I I would be it would all of my problems and you go I think if they could get rid of their problems they would too yeah well yeah nobody gives a [ __ ] about the problems of the Rich and successful and that's that's a burden that you know you have to bear I feel fortunate that um I got a level of Fame that wasn't crippling um you know I had one TV show and you know you know people knew me from it but it was a it was a a very popular show but it was small audience so you know I I I could walk down the street and all that I mean I'm still going to get recognized on the regular but it allowed me to continue to engage in life and it allowed me to make a career transition you know because I went back and um talked to a lot of my friends who are uh very famous and you know and I told them what it was that I was doing they're like you got out and I was so surprised but what do mean I got out they're like man good for you you got out they're treating it like alcatra yeah well it is it is a kind of prison what you're famous because you can't really go anywhere and you can't make a a transition like you're you're stuck there you can't go get a regular job because of the amount of transference that's that's placed on you and so I was really surprised by their reaction it was the first time that I realized that that they they did in fact feel trapped and I felt fortunate that um that I still had the kind of freedom to be able to to be able to walk away yeah it's fascinating I remember so I did a a a TV show I did a a few TV shows in my 20s one of them was love Island the first season in in the UK popular sort of reality TV dating thing and uh I always remember thinking at the time like a little bit wistful I was I half had the perspective that I knew that this was the right thing the first season was 10 times smaller than the second which was 10 times smaller than the third which was 10 times smaller than the fourth and then it kind of peaked and is now maybe flattened out I always I always thought I wonder what it would have been like to have done one of the you know better known Seasons who've come in at season two or season three or season four I could have pretty much picked any of them the casting directors were a friend and um in retrospect I'm so [ __ ] glad that it was the smallest one it was basically a full cost broadcast dress rehearsal for the rest of the uh series not even the seasons and uh I'm so glad because it meant like you say I was like beholden to nothing I came off nothing had changed no one no one cared but maybe accumulated a thousand followers on Instagram so basically nothing had nothing had altered so it meant that I was unencumbered uh by any but you're pretty you're pretty famous now I mean you must get recognized everywhere and I mean I remember when I saw you kuya like because I'd seen you on you know on YouTube and you know there's a I have a projection on to you like I there's something that happens in relationship when you meet somebody who you've seen on the screen and so that that that must be happening for you all the time it is but the difference is it feels like people know me uh you know on a reality TV show where 24 hours is curated into 45 minutes nightly for seven weeks or something uh and you're 27 26 27 uh and you're still an adult infant I mean I largely still am but uh at least it feels like when people come up to me they know me you know they come up and they ask stuff about my life they they they understand what I genuinely care about right and I've not you know with at least with the show this isn't that Normy of a show if you're going to sit and listen to two Bloks prattle on for an hour about like the inner inner sort of minations of of of emotions and do we really need to be what's the difference between discernment and containment like you know it's selects for a very particular type of person and I'm very glad they're the kinds of people that I would want to go for a coffee with and uh what it basically has done if I'm being honest is it has outsourced friend finding for me on a sort of global scale and the only people that come up are the ones that have been through the fire and brimstone of putting up with us talking about this like kind of Niche weird psychology [ __ ] yeah uh I I'm sure you know as it continues to go there'll be challenges and I was having this conversation only a couple of days ago like how do you know when enough exposure is enough and how do you then stop it from being too much and it's not really a train that you can sort of stop slowing down the rocket ship you can't just like pull some ejector button and be like right okay we'll stop it there like this is the perfect amount so I don't know uh and also you like what again what an opulent problem to have it's like a rich guy complaining about how hard it is to file his taxes um but it'll be an interesting challenge at the moment it's the perfect level people say hello once every 15 minutes when I'm on the street or a bit more often if I'm in a gym and uh sometimes I get free coffee you know like people have always got nice things to say it's brilliant but again that the the roller coaster continues to roll so we'll see where up in a few years time yeah well I guess the any kind of an anonymous life is is essentially over for you yeah that's not something that I'd considered before yeah but you're right I mean you want everybody to know your face you want everybody to know your name and no one to know your face uh and I've managed to do probably close to the opposite like you look like that guy that guy that does that thing I'm like ah right okay yeah you know the face and I have no idea of the name so well it's the burd it's the burden that comes with with the gift there it's the shadow there's always a shadow there's always a price that we have to pay when we bring our gift fully to the world there's no way around it what was the moment for you when you kind of got to the uh I'm not sure that this is all it thing when you were in Hollywood um I I don't you know it's I I had I had this great year where I had this television show I had two movies I was dating uh this very beautiful movie star I had just bought this house I was redoing it I mean I had everything and it was upside everywhere that I looked and I just had this like deep feeling of dissatisfaction I wasn't really happy I mean I was I was gratified in a way and proud but the I wasn't satisfied um and I didn't know what that was I didn't have the Consciousness at the time to realize this wasn't where I was supposed to be although you know it had moments where it's you know I was on a set of friends I remember and uh doing a guest spot and you know sitting on the on the couch in the the coffee shop and they're are all the friends and it's kind of a surreal moment it was early in my career and uh at the time they're making $750,000 an episode and I'm just you know looking at them taking all of that in and I had this feeling it's like I don't want this and I didn't know what that was I mean it was a very clear thought and I was like is is that real or is that just some fear of success that I'm having and it didn't really play out for another six or seven years uh and then it wasn't until I found something that really lit me up and I realized that the thing that I was searching for in acting I found in this uh sematic Psychotherapy like everything that I wanted was in that and the game that that was and um the the container that it existed in was so exciting for me and creative and uh at that point then it was like it was really simple I just started to move in the direction of what I was most interested in isn't it crazy when uh people have a an inkling uh the sort of earliest murmurings of a realization and you say and about six or seven years later I actually was able to commit to that thing yeah man it's uh I part of me thinks oh wouldn't it be great if we sort of had the courage of our convictions and we were able to pull the pin and and and things would happen more quickly but then another part of me just thinks you can't you can't realize things before you're ready to realize them in that way no I had to go through it I had to go through the process of Letting Go I mean my ego was incredibly attached I mean I came up you know you're an actor you're trying to make it you don't think you're going to make it or you know maybe you have an intuition but you don't know and then you make it and you're working on television you're getting lots of money and people are recognizing you I mean you're you're you're just in this other world that so many people dream about and your ego is just so elated so then to have a thought like I don't really want this it's like what no hey hey whoa whoa whoa this is like a dream come true um so it took yeah it took a long time for me to detach my ego detach my identity and all the all the you know the validation that I was getting constantly it just you know it it fuels you and I saw it I saw it with other people like um that I I I saw that they were as we talked about earlier they were trapped there was no way out for them the amount of money that they were making the fame they had this is this was whether they liked it or not that was their life I think a question a good question to ask and one that I think everybody can kind of no matter what stage of success they're at can think to themselves is okay how much would be enough like what would it be would it be one gold medal well how many gold medalists get one and then they get gold medalist syndrome and they think that they need two or would it be one Super Bowl because there's guys that have got pretty much enough to fit on every finger on their hands yeah would it be a interesting uh psychological study uh if you ask people what that ideal level of earning is and actually we can do this I guess the people that are listening can do this now so if you think to yourself what level of earning would you get to annual earning where you would think yeah that's it like that's I mean that's really it for me that number is almost definitely around about three times your annual income regardless of what your annual income is and it scales all the way up so if you're making 100 Grand a year it's almost always about 300 Grand a year if you're making a million a year it's almost always about 3 million a year you're making 5 million a year it's always always about 15 million a year just keeps on to round about three times what you earn at the moment but it doesn't stop it just keeps going so ask yourself the question what okay so what would be enough because we're not designed to be happy we're designed to try as hard as we can right and that's the game the game is you will try harder you are a donkey with a stick on your back with a carrot attached at the front and every step that you take toward the carrot the character is going to move one step further away well the satisfaction is in in the West you know the it's the climbing of the mountain that's most exciting you get to the top and how long do you spend at the top a couple of minutes and before you start climbing down and thinking about the next Mountain you want to climb so I think I I it's hard to orient that way because we're so gal oriented but if you can stay present in the moment and realize it's like I mean that's how it is for me when I look back at Hollywood the fond memories yes I have fond memories about shooting scenes and and meeting certain actors and really nailing something and then seeing it on the screen and feeling proud but actually it was the early years in La when I was driving around to auditions three auditions a day and you know all the the kind of craziness of all of that like that part of the movie is my favorite looking back on it so it was it was the journey the moment before I made it it was the most exciting the thing that's wild is I want to get on to talking about presentence but even in the Nostalgia of thinking about that time you're nostalgic memories will almost always be more enjoyable than the actual time themselves Morgan howel tells this really brilliant he's got an awesome awesome article about Nostalgia everyone can look at it it's collaborative fund uh and it's I think it's called Nostalgia or memories it came up a couple of weeks ago uh and he is talking to his wife now about um the golden years what he called the golden years I think they got together when they were maybe 23 or something and they're living in Seattle or somewhere and they've just got their first apartment they're living together and uh they had no obligations no kids and he's reminiscing he's talking to her about this now in the you know like 40s and he says you remember that there was the golden years we didn't have to wake we could lie in whenever we wanted we could eat whatever we wanted we were able to do you know what a brilliant time that was apparently his wife turned to him and said you were miserable do you not remember you hated it you were constantly terrified you going to lose your job we were living paycheck to paycheck and he went a little bit deeper and realized oh yeah that that was what was happening I was I was was terrified but my memory of that young kid was that all of the things he needed to be worried about or that he thought he should be worried about didn't come to pass so I have the wisdom I have the perspective that he never needed to worry so all of the worries are forgotten and all of the highlights are retained but the felt experience day-to-day of that particular individual was concern and rumination and anxiety and threat display it was all of that stuff well he may be felt alive you know and maybe that's what he's remembering I don't know if you saw that Peter Jackson movie forget the name of it but he he took all this World War I footage and and and remastered it so he put it in color and smoothed it out really interesting but the the film starts with um this V all these voiceovers from the British soldiers and they're obviously recording this when they were very old in their 80s probably and you know we all know that World War I is considered the most brutal war in history every single soldier essentially said oh that was the time of my life that was the Great Adventure they loved it you know and you think uh okay maybe it's a lot of what you're saying but you know they were alive and they were up against death and yeah in the moment there's all this horror but there is something about I mean I don't know how you feel but there was a part of me when I was a younger man that felt sad that I I never got to experience War me too it's like I want to know what that feels like and I'm never going to get to to know that and there's something that I think is lost and you know certainly play it out in our life lives in all kinds of different ways but it's not the same my life is not at stake I'm not walking into a situation where I I could be killed or I have to kill and have to feel what that is yeah there's some insane percentage I saw this stat the other day about the percentage of silent generation that had been in military service of Boomers of Gen X of Millennials gen Z and it's just all the way down it just gets you precipitously lower um another thing that I was thinking about you know when you're talking about the the wartime mode especially early on um I only realized this recently one of my friends said this to me uh I always sort of lament how busy things are and we've got all of this stuff to do and so on and so forth um we were walking into a gig having just finished recording a ton of episodes in a ton of days and I'd traveled to Australia and I come back and I was in the UK and just doing all this stuff and I was we were filming a vlog I was like dude it's you know it's it's going to be a tough week it's going to be it's going to be tough going and he' sort of fact checked me and he was like what the [ __ ] are you talking about man like you love this chaos and it was the first time you know how you saying before a therapist is somebody that reflects you back to you I remember thinking yeah I do actually I do [ __ ] love this chaos I do I love spinning 10 15 plates at once and seeing if I can keep them all going but we have this story we kind of especially around peace at least for me peace being something that I try to I'm a big fan of uh that any diversion from that is an aberration it's something that should be fixed or it's wrong or it's broken um but there's certain things that are going to come along for the ride if you want to do things some nights you're not going to get perfect sleep right some nights you're going to have to stay late some nights certain things are going to keep you awake you're going to have to you know Miss social engagements you're going to have to make sacrifices in the gym etc etc and uh I don't know I I feel like just accepting some of those things not railing against them so much not saying that these are personal curses bestowed just on you unique problem that you have to deal with unfair uh you know a bug not a feature you go hey what what if kind of like gravity you go I wish that gravity was just a bit lighter and he goes well guess what gravity is the exact weight that gravity is it's the precise Force that gravity is so you're just going to have to put up with it yeah yeah well there's no you know light without dark there's no peace without War so it's part of it you I I I personally love the chaos as well I mean it's I I like because it takes you out of control and you find out things about yourself when when you go out of control and uh it can be exciting it can be scary we can get addicted to it I think that can be an issue I've certainly suffered from that and I have to find the balance of it um but there's a lot of life in it and um and I I think it's I don't know my feeling is I think it's important to go a little insane sometimes right we have to lose our mind we have to lose ourselves there's a lot of different ways that we can do that it could be in our work or through some kind of you know spiritual practice or you know running a marathon these kind of things but I think it's it's really important particularly for men um to put yourself in situations where you you you face overwhelm you know you're at you're at your Edge and to not judge it um as you said to accept everything that's happening in the moment I mean that's really that's what peace is I think it's just the acceptance of what is and being okay with it you mentioned the word presence a number of times uh Sam Harris's been on this show a number of different meditation teachers they have a conception of presence um what is it that you mean when you talk about being present well I I guess I'd uh talk about it through the framework of of my work and it it goes back a little bit what I was saying earlier about um we uh repress you know deny shame disassociate from certain aspects of our s feelings impulses desires needs when we're children we all do it um and so in that place we we form a defense or maybe an idealized self-image or a mask and that's sort of our operating system uh for the world and we become identified with it and it feels like who we are but very often there's um we hit a certain point in our life where things aren't working or or you we we experience some frustration or dissatisfaction we see patterns that are happening and they they happen over and over again at a certain point you realize well this this must be me there must be something going on in my unconscious that I have to confront because this you know I'm creating this and so what you know that you're in that moment that you're not you're not present right you're not present with some aspect of yourself there's something in your unconscious that's guiding you and so the work for for me is to help people um feel what they had to repress right feel the the Pain Feel The Rage Feel the fear like feel it like literally in their body like liberate all those emotions that we hold on to that are stuck there and creating the cognitive distortions and so it's for me presence is an embodied experience it's the willingness to um feel everything inside of us like life happens and we have feelings and there's a certain tendency to want to control those feelings or manage those feelings and and I think that there's a wisdom in that but if you do that from a state of uh repression or fear it doesn't work and so in the place where I'm not present let's say with my wife it's because there's something inside me that I don't want to face or feel that's it so that's the frame that I put on it the question ask is well what is it that you're unwilling to feel because it means that there's something in the present moment that scares you now it might be irrational might not make sense to your conscious mind because you're a grown man but it might be the fear of of the child that that's that's coming up in that moment and so I work with presence you know through people's emotions through people's feelings and and all the distortions that that get created does that does that make sense what I'm saying yeah it does it does it does does this do we need to become stronger then in a way in order to be more present more resilient more powerful stronger more vulnerable I think is really the the work it's it it because feeling feelings that scare us we're forced to be vulnerable what is vulnerable mean to me it just means openness and and and truth right and so there's a strength that it requires in order to be vulnerable and that was a reframe that I had to make for myself because I had all of those typical masculine images about what strength meant and then I realized the um the strongest thing that I can do is to tell the truth and and to reveal myself like to to be honest about what's actually going on inside me without shame and um again you know going back that that creates all kinds of images I can hear the men in your eyes audience you know saying well what are you supposed to feel all your feelings and you know well it's not exactly that but to be with them to learn to be with right to learn to build a container for them to to not be ashamed of anything really um your light and your dark um and I think it's I think there's so much that so many ways that we avoid vulnerability we avoid and and you know showing our shadow we avoid showing our pain we avoid acknowledging our fear and and and probably the deepest one for most people is we avoid feeling how much we love because there's nothing more vulnerable than letting your your love your passion your light right like shine through like most people's major problem is they protect it right because once you're all the way here with all of who you are you're not in control anymore right like you're you're completely exposed that's the only way to be fully present in the world is to be completely exposed and most people are unwilling to tolerate that level of vulnerability myself included that's all I'm working on you know like because that restriction I can see fractal out into all of the the things in my life right it fractal out into my career it fractal out into you know the work and how I'm approaching it it fractal out into my relationship so it really for me becomes about one thing it's like can I can I risk exposing um reveal healing maybe is a better word um all of of Who I Am The Good the Bad the Ugly I like the reframe around strength to show your vulnerabilities I think I don't know acknowledging your weaknesses is not the same to it's not the same as surrendering to them and the only way to overcome your limitations is to actually know what they are that's right so I don't think I don't know I I I still haven't been able to sort of fully thread the needle with the whole men's distaste for showing vulnerability and openness and stuff like that because I don't think it's massively aspirational for really the guys even the guys that do it I think there's still a sense of like fear and ick and concern and shame around it and um I I get the sense that in order for you to say something that a guy will want to go and do it it needs to be two things at once it needs to both understand the fact that they have difficulties and challenges but also not patronize them at the same time or make them feel weak and that's a really difficult line to balance yeah unbelievably difficult yeah things are things are hard for you and you can get through them and I understand and I can support you but you don't need the support but it's there in case you need it it's like you know you're permanently having to [ __ ] caveat your way around the fragile masculine ego yeah well you know what it's it's it's great all you really all people need is for Fe their feelings to be validated I understand why you'd be scared that's usually enough I understand why your heart is broken like not get over it [ __ ] there's another girl out there for you it's it's like and that you know that's that's how I approach all of my sessions with people it's like they they have a story about what happened to them I'm not necessarily validating their interpretation of events but I'm validating their feeling their experience of that event and because that's real for them I mean you can't argue with somebody's feelings and so once they're once they feel seen and acknowledged in their feelings I think that creates a kind of a safety in a resonance that then they can meet go meet the challenge or take responsibility but until that happens for a lot of people they're they get stuck in the feeling right and um they don't they can't move past it and they attach it to a story so I mean that that's it's and it's as simple as that just acknowledge your feelings within yourself that's all you have to do I'm sad that's it that's you're good bro you know this girl broke up with me my heart is broken it's like that's fine you know just just acknowledge it within yourself and be with that for a second don't don't um uh romanticize it don't succumb to it uh don't indulge it but be with it like of course your heart's going to break I mean are you human if your heart's not going to break I mean it's a beautiful thing to have a broken heart like let yourself be in that experience of it right and eventually you're gonna you're GNA move on from it or or or whatever I'm filled with rage right now I want to [ __ ] kill the world just be wherever you are with what it is you're feeling and if you let if you presence that if you let yourself be with that what you'll find is that you'll move very quickly out of that into the next thing yeah uh Chris Bumstead bodybuilder man uh he talks about how if you don't feel the bad you don't feel the good so I kind of sort of think about emotions doing that what people want to do is to be able to sort of slide them up and down a scale so I want I want this particular window of emotions but I just want them at the top end I want like all of these good ones here but I I don't think that that's the way that it works I had actually for the first time ever at the start of this year uh a like really really sort of bad couple of days a really sad few days went through a breakup and it sucked and uh then found myself randomly laughing hysterically in the Uber on the way to therapy like 3 days later I was like what the [ __ ] am I doing and that was the first time that I'd ever thought oh emotions really are a roller coaster they actually are a roller coaster yeah and after this huge emotional release another one comes on the kind of the what's what's the opposite end of this scale it's sort of the it's swung one way and then it swings back the other well the illusion is we're stuck in it forever and because that that that was not to bring it back to the the the therapy model but you that was the child's experience like when you're a little child with your parents you are stuck in that situation you're stuck there forever so the feelings you're have you have there feel like they're they're forever they're Eternal that you can never get out of that situation and because that's that actually is in fact reality it's not true anymore as an adult but that fear that I'm G to be stuck in this is forever like when I'm working with people very often it's you know if I'm encouraging them to to go into their their Rage or their their sadness whatever it is very often the reaction is like I feel if I go into this it's never going to end like it's a bottomless pit and it's going to it's going to completely consume me and that's the illusion that they're living in it's not that way at all once they allow themselves to go there and express it and feel it and let it move through them usually what happens is they they feel lighter obviously but they come into more connection with with themselves and and then with other people because they're not carrying this around you know they're not you weighed down with this with this burden and um and and using all of this energy you know physical and psychic energy they're not using that to to repress it anymore so they're they're lighter they're more here and I think you know that's again it's you know the work that I do is it's so unique in that way because of the the tools that we use you know I mean breath work is becoming really popular now and I think that's that's great but uh there's not really many places where you can go to really like get it all out you know to really like [ __ ] express it like unbridled whatever it is I mean that's always the invitation at my workshops don't hold anything back and and people are like what do you mean I'm like you don't have to hold anything back anything at all in any moment you can just like let it come through and obviously we we there's certain rules and a container that we could create but that is um you know ter it's it's liberating on one sense it's like oh that sounds exciting but it's also terrifying because a and I'm there to challenge you when I feel like you're holding back like what is it your holding back and why well I know why because you're afraid you know and if you didn't hold back what and they have all kinds of images about what's going to happen but you know on the other side of it they're just it's it's yeah they're free I love it David So Cliff ladies and gentlemen David where should people go they want to keep up to date with all of the stuff that you're doing uh go to my website davidt cliff.com it's all there dude you're sick I I really appreciate the uh energy that you bring to this and uh we've got lots more to talk about so let's bring you back on soon I appreciate you man thank you for having me do you think that your algorithm on YouTube is a bit of a God is able to know things about you that you don't know about yourself well the YouTube gods have selected this episode specifically for you bespoke so go and go and check it out