How To Stop "Surviving" & Finally Start Living - Yung Pueblo

I was saying to you before we get started um I really have noticed in myself as I've spent more time uh creating content and and and talking about challenges in life I've started to gravitate toward the people that I listen to or the sorts of topics that I use to consume when I very very first started these are people like uh yourself Oliver burkeman uh aland Boton from the school of life um you know people that really see The Human Condition with all of its challenges all of its shortcomings all of its foibles and and the sort of very unashamed unabashed self-reflection of look we're irrational we're shaving chimps on a rock we didn't ask to be here we don't know how to be here we're living in an environment that's hopelessly mismatched with the genetics and the the biological predisposition that we were given we've got technology that's moving way quicker than even our brains can keep up let alone our Evolution it's tough and it's okay and maybe this comforting sentence will help like that's kind of the the center of of where where I'm at at the moment and um I think you you slot very nicely into that yeah thank you I mean you broke it down really beautifully and it's like hopefully this sentence builts a little bit of self-awareness right because we're highly imperfect we're bound to make mistakes but the reality is that in the process of accepting how imperfect you are it's it's almost like you take your power back and you're like okay well I know what I'm good at and I know what I'm not good at so let me try to build some new you know some new skills along the way yeah I think you there's a few different ways that you can do it um maybe people that are more disposed towards positive AFF or extraversion or like high energy perhaps they would default to kind of laughing it off you know they make a joke out of it it's not so big of a deal isn't it silly like look look at the way that my brain works look at the um and then there's different horses for courses I think if you've got the level of self-reflection of someone like Oliver burkman laughing at the absurdity of your own thoughts is probably a little bit harder to do so you know he works through it kind of more me methodically he he takes sort of Step by Step he understand okay well this is because of this and this is because of this and this because of this and then with this very large view we actually get to we get we get some perspective and we step back from being caught up in the torrent of our own thoughts oh that's really interesting you know it's it's um I think what's really worked for me is sort of just honestly realizing how flimsy thoughts are like flimsy and like insubstantial so to me when I find myself getting caught up in a thought stream or some narrative that's just building tension I have to like pull myself back and I'm like wait like why am I hanging on to this thing that's so incredibly impermanent like why am I just you know allowing anxiety and tension and heaviness to just continue bubbling up in my mind when you you know I'm the one causing this tension so let me let it go it's wild to think how much stress and suffering we have caused ourselves yeah and I think that's like the key medicine right it's really hard to accept the fact that like the person who hurt you can't heal you and ultimately your perception and your reaction all of this of which is happening inside your own mind that's where the real trouble lies you know when you understand that your perception is Ed heavily by the past and that it's influencing the way you're seeing things in the present moment and you're not actually seeing them clearly you're just seeing them through this like heavy coated lens of old pain old sort of inclinations sort of defensive like survivalist mode of living um makes it really hard to engage with something genuinely so I honestly when people you know ask me how do you become happy well you have to embrace mental training you have to train the mind yeah it's an unru Steed to uh have between your ears in the same way as a bad horse might be between your legs but I mean you know when you realize and I feel like I have to put this caveat on the internet for the edge cases of people there are certainly some people for whom the world has mistreated them consistently from when they were a baby until when they were an adult and for those people I feel bad for you that being said the vast majority of the Bell Cur with that caveat out of the way we are the ultimate source of most of our own suffering we know exactly where our fears lie we know where our shame is hidden and we're able to pick at that scab over and over again we almost get this strange sense of satisfaction when we do that when we go back over a a familiar but painful Loop that we moved through oh you did this thing and you did that thing and it's going to make this happen and you didn't do that thing before you know the path it's like going on a walk it's like a little mental walk that you take yourself on and you turn right when you get to this tree and you turn left when you get to that stream and um yeah when you realize holy [ __ ] sure stuff happens outside but largely that's just these sort of little Sparks the palisad fire that comes from that is me perpetuating it pouring kerosene on it not giving myself a break not allowing myself to have perspective and um it's two things it is liberating and guilt inducing because you realize that the if you're a prisoner inside of these bad thoughts you're also the prison guard and that means that the fact that you haven't sort of turned the key and opened the door is on you and there's a type of pressure that's associated with that which can make you feel uncomfortable right and I think I mean you're hitting at a key thing too here where letting go is not a one-time event so once you kind of see yourself going into the loop jumping back in sort of like giving power again to like the old traumatic moment of someone hurting you like yeah someone did hurt you but who's the one picking it back up like who's the one like you know it's encoded in your perception and then you keep reacting to that emotional response to it over and over again and that's what's making your mind heavy and I think instead of just sort of existing passively in that you have to kind of take your power back and tell yourself okay what is my mind clinging to and if my mind is clinging in this moment what does that mean I'm no longer in the present I'm like swimming around in my mind and it's the same way where either dealing with trauma from the past or with dealing with attachments of the future like I want X and Y you know like all these things to happen in a very particular way and you're craving all of that then the mind is just riddled with tension but I think it's it's a difficult thing because sometimes people go to an extreme where they're like oh so what does that mean I do nothing want nothing it's like no it's having desires and goals in a balanced manner like can you move forward towards your goal in a strategic way without causing yourself tons of suffering in the process and I think that's something that you know honestly I've had to learn the hard way because I have goals but I realize you know with each book launch I'm realizing like how am I handling this am I handling a little better than before and um and I can really measure that by the mixture of productivity and what the stress level is and I find productivity and pain it's how much how much am I getting done and how much am I suffering while I'm trying to do it yeah honestly and then the higher level of that too is like I'm actually noticing that I can be more productive with less stress if I just allow myself to do my best in each situation and then let it go it is what it is yeah I uh you know you're well read when it comes to Buddhism significantly better than I am but the tiny little like cliffnotes stuff that I've got you know letting go of Desire uh letting go let non-attachment um I think if everybody just had to meditate that might actually be a really great Str that would probably be kind of the single turn key solution if you can let go of all attachments if you can let go of all desires then you're probably going to end up assuming that you're not totally terrible at meditation and mindfulness you're probably going to end up somewhere close to pretty good the problem is and the reason that I've never been able to kind of fully get on board with that given that you probably have constraints around your ability to dedic yourself to that philosophy you have to exist within the existing framework which is I am a social animal that needs status and validation and recognition and external uh praise and and that's me it's part of me and one route would be completely detox myself from that rid myself of all of these attachments you know basically transcend the programming that a couple of million years have given me you go all right assuming that that is perhaps too lofty of a goal for almost everybody to get except for super Elite meditators um how can I play Within the system how can I play the game whilst knowing that it's not about the game and that balance I think is [Music] um where the sort of devil in the details lies it's quite a challenge too because I think a lot of times when we get caught up in the social aspect of life where you know the things that you're trying to achieve the circles that you want to be a part of um just you know the value that you want to bring to the world I think it's really and this happens to so many people that their success they can't even enjoy it because the mind is so untrained the mind is so geared towards okay I accomplish this what's next what else can I do after that and there's very little joy in that so I think like one thing that I found pretty often was when I go away to meditation Retreats like I'm going and it's basically I'm taking myself to a mental gym like I'm I'm specifically focusing on cultivating three qualities cultivating awareness cultivating non-reaction and cultivating compassion for myself and others and those three qualities like over time yes you can become an extraordinarily Elite meditator can can you know really you know walk this path that leads to the end of suffering but in the process what it really does is it just makes life brighter shinier it improves your decision- making it makes you way more productive with way less tension and I think to me it's like it's the best investment I've ever made you know it's like better than investing in the S&P 500 for 20 30 years so to me when people ask me they're like why do you meditate daily it's you know you're so busy it takes up so much time and I'm like because it improves every facet of my life and it makes the moments of Victory so much sweeter like the moments that I get to spend with my parents with my wife with friends you know when when I do am able to accomplish something it's like I can be with it and engage with so much more presence and then when it's done it's done and I'm okay and I can move forward but in a way where I didn't miss the previous moment if that makes sense yeah well that's the attachment thing again right in advance of it you're anticipating it you can't wait for it to happen while it's happening you can have a bunch of things going on you can feel Oliver burkman describes this beautifully he talks about a a gorgeous morning in the York D's near where he lives and he says he gets up on time has the perfect coffee that he made himself in his hand and he walks out it's the middle of December there's this beautiful vistor in front of him you know it's just untouched unfettered snow perfectly you know it looks like a postcard and during the experience of this you know very normal but very Peak moment he thinks to himself this is a beautiful morning this is the sort of morning that you should be having all of the time and the fact that you're not having having this sort of morning all of the time is actually a failing of yours so in the moment of experiencing he's already looking over the shoulder of the present moment to consider what's coming next to regret the fact that he hasn't done this in the past and um yeah I mean there's D there's so many ways that you can ruin Peak experiences and then what you end up with is basically a string of miserable successes you know you have you have the wall of all of the thing you've got the photos or you've got the ACC blades you can say that you did the thing but when this is definitely true for me man this isn't me [ __ ] castigating the audience this is me saying like this is me this is my experience when I'm not when I'm untrained when I haven't spent enough time meditating when I'm not putting my mind where my feet are you can have a repertoire of different things that you've achieved and you weren't there for any of them that's one of the saddest moments in life too cuz I've gone through the same thing where I've had Beautiful Moments you know people are friends are coming together to celebrate my birthday and before I started meditating you know I'd look around all these people wanting to share en joy and my mind is only thinking about the one person who's missing or you know why is XY andz not here and it's like dude you missed it you missed it you missed literally the miracle of even having people who want to come up and show up for you y and to me honestly that was exhausting and it was simultaneously sad but also empowering when when I did start meditating I did my first silent tender retreat in um July of 2012 and it hit me right off the bat how superficial all of my relationships were like how superficial my relationship was with my my wife with my um you know with my parents with my friends and I was like but I noticed off the bat I'm like oh it's because I'm highly disconnected from myself I've spent years running away from my emotions and as soon as saw my emotions I was like oh my gosh I'm terribly disconnected yeah yeah a lot of us are what you say decapitated below the neck right uh what is it that the the the last time that somebody that the guillotine was used actually wasn't that long ago I don't think if you look worldwide obviously there's probably Guillotines being used in war crimes across across all sorts of different horrible places but one that was officially used actually wasn't all that long ago um so you think wow you know decapitation how barbaric and it's like dude you've done that emot to yourself since you were born and um yeah this problem of struggling to connect with other people after you've spent time working on yourself is a an interesting challenge I think you know the sorts of people that consume your Sur and and you know hopefully this show too they're considered they they they really they're reflective um maybe they are a bit predisposed to low mood and the reason that they're on this this path is that they're trying to work out what's going on and they think [ __ ] like if only I didn't have if only I didn't have this thing holding me back you know and if you're behaviorally genetics pilled it's part of your predisposition if your attachment Theory pilled it's part of your upbringing if your you know trauma pilled it's part of your first relation you know what wherever it is that you lay at the feet and it's a conglomeration of all of these things a lot of people kind of way should I catch myself doing this tooo if only you know if only if only if only if only the the raw materials the ingredients that this dish that I am was made from look at all of the work that I need to do look at how hard I need to climb up hill to be able to overcome these particular pathologies that I didn't choose that I didn't ask for that was somehow like whatever the not gifted to me like thrown at me and I there all of this slime and I've got to wipe off all of this slime and as you said it's not a onetime event I've got to you tell me I've got to do it again yeah I did it perfectly today and you're telling me I've got to [ __ ] do it again but but I think that everybody can look everybody that that resonates with this sense of unfairness this sense of sort of additionally heavy burden there is an unbelievable Light Side to this which is your level of self-insight is so much greater than the people who don't have to deal with that and this isn't a that's better or worse it just is and when you think about how much pleasure do you take from knowing yourself truly from being able to do this kind of self-investigation from the quality of your thoughts being driven by this need to understand not only this need to understand you but this need to be able to sympathize and empathize and connect with other people on a much deeper level when you ask someone when I ask myself this question I'm like look would you sacrifice that if it meant that you didn't have to like is ignorance Bliss basically and um maybe this is stock like uh psychological Stockholm Syndrome or something that I'm like ah I have to love my cap um I wouldn't I I don't think I'd take that deal I think that I value too much the opportunity to really to broaden out and fully fully investigate everything that life's got to offer and I also think that when you arrive at at successes and conquests in that kind of a way uh you know deep ones insights about yourself connections with other people when you arrived there and you did it through spit and sord and sweat and Blood and Tears it feels really earned as opposed to somebody that just sort of stumbled on it didn't know where it came from and then kind of blew past it because they hadn't they hadn't really worked out why it was there yeah I mean you you literally end up building your piece Brick by Brick and I love that you you know came came to your own conclusion there but it's like ignorance is not Bliss dude ignorance is suffering it's just what I'm just going to be exhausted stressed full of tension full of anxiety always like missing the beautiful moment that's right in front of me I don't want to live like that I think that's one thing that's special about the time that we live in today is that you know being miserable is like going it's going out of style it feels like so many people are exhausted by you know like I grew up in a way where if you had a mental ailment or a physical ailment you were just going to have to deal with it for the rest of your life but I think so many people are looking at whatever it is that's ailing them making life harder and they're actively looking for Solutions and if there isn't one out out there they're building companies to find it they're creating new science to do it they're just like no let's find a way to live at a higher more optimal level I find that really inspiring but you know even what you were saying before it's making me remember that we live in a society that is trying to make everything easier for us every single aspect of you you think about all the apps on your phone they're all sort of designed to make life easier so we live in this like uber door Dash society and you can't bring that mentality into your personal growth you also can't bring that mentality into your relationship so there's definitely skills that you can develop but honestly you have to build your piece Brick by Brick and I think it's I've noticed that over time you know like I've done so many meditation Retreats I've probably meditated for over 12 13,000 hours and holy [ __ ] it's like you know maybe after five 6,000 hours when I was like okay my mind is very different from from how it was before and it was literally like you know I'm training to live happier to like have more peace to have more freedom and it's the same way that you don't just run a marathon you have to train for it and you don't just like learn a language you know you you have to learn it over time and I think that's one of the harder aspects of self-development that people have to accept is that it's nice and slow and you got to be there for the long journey and you know and know that something is good like I remember after that first 10day Retreat when I left my mind felt undeniably lighter and but only by like maybe 3% but it was so noticeable to me because my mind felt so damn heavy before that and that's why I was like you know I got to go back because I don't even I don't even really understand what I went through I need to go learn more and as I've gone you know I still feel the same set of you know same set of emotions like everybody else but in anxiety sadness these sort of heavier things I feel them but I don't grab them I don't throw more fuel onto that fire I don't make them bigger than they need to be and and you know I'm I'm grateful that I put in the work because like it was hard man but uh you know I still have a long way to go there's a a famous Instagram real that gets shared pretty regularly that's um maybe a woman that's talking she says no one is coming to save you and you know it's kind of played as part of a alpha motivational idea of you pick up the weight and carry it yourself this is something that you need to do this is an issue that you're going to have to face on and so forth and I think in many ways you know it's like it's cool and it's aggressive and it's lean in and it's you know like high testosterone stuff but the really really difficult place that everybody needs to look at and that everybody needs to face is that when it comes to issues inside of your own mind when it comes to boring repetitive thought patterns the way that you see yourself the the fact that you continue to show up in relationships in this way all the time and that you almost create this self-fulfilling prophecy you almost say uh I I think that this is the way that things are going to happen and I'm going to continue to push the buttons that seem to have caused it to happen before because I'm more concerned with proving myself right than breaking a negative pattern I would sooner be miserable and correct yeah than than happy and Incorrect and um I'm doing CBT for the first time I don't know whether you've ever tried doing cognitive behavioral therapy but um it is it it's frankly a lot of [ __ ] work like it's just really hard yeah and it's not you know meditation yes you do mindfulness throughout the day come back to the breath you can notice you can you know label release and allow you can do those things but for the most part A lot of the work happens on the cushion right and you go okay here's my 10 30 60 for you 120 minutes a day that I'm going to lock in and do this thing um CBT is like is like Japanese water torture for the mind because it's like dude if you could see the number of [ __ ] reminders I've got on my phone it's insane anybody that if if anybody was able to look at my phone throughout the day for the different triggers that I need to do they be like what the [ __ ] is this like why is why why does kick the bully appre like appear every 30 minutes throughout your day and that's just one of a bunch of different triggers and I'm like right okay I'm going to commit I'm going to try and work on this real hard but my point being that um no one is coming to save you is literally the most true place it's ever going to be true as when it comes to the inner landscape of your mind absolutely and it's funny too because like as soon as you said that it made me think like no one's going to come save you but there are going to be people that randomly appear that will inspire you and they may even help you with whatever method um it is that you're trying to learn you know like I wasn't going to I didn't just like teach myself meditating like I went to a teacher they taught me they corrected me over time it took me years to be able to like really you know make the actual practice of meditation much more efficient as opposed to like making it clunky and you know because the mind doesn't want to observe the present moment the mind is constantly trying to fight that and it's really hard to just observe reality as it is the mind is constantly trying to interject the past or the future onto that and um so it took a lot of teachers to you know for me asking questions and corrections but ultimately who put in the effort it was my own mind no one's going to come and meditate for you dude no no one no one's going to give you their Enlightenment no one's going to transmit peace to you like you know you may have be around people who have great energy and and are non-judgmental but those are very sort of temporary things and I think it was it was interesting like I remember what before I started meditating I um I did you know mushrooms a few times tried acid a few times and I found that these were almost like really pretty powerful like intellectual experiences where like I felt better felt better in my in my um you know my body and my mind was just like connecting to all these different ideas um but it felt like I was almost taking a Peak at a new world and opening a window but when I started meditating it was like dude I cracked that window open and just put my legs right through and I was walking in a whole new world and even days later you know I was like everything is shinier and brighter like I literally remember you know after I I think on like day seven day eight of the first course and and it still continues on now I remember looking at a tree and being like holy [ __ ] I can see more branches and more leaves than I could before like my mind wasn't even been able to cognize at that level because it was so busy and I think it was a shock over time how our senses and our literally all of our abilities are dulled by the tension that we unconsciously carry your rate limited by how much you're distracted 100% And it yeah you're right it the brain can't do parallel processing I'm sorry even for the people that think they're amazing multitasking isn't a thing you can just task switch really quickly and uh yeah you're right you know you think about you'll remember this when when you're reading and you're UNM mindfully reading and um this is so this is such a funny one you go through a page you go I know that I looked at each individual word and I probably kind of somehow vocalized them in my mind and if you held a gun to my head and asked me to tell you anything that just happened on my page I'm like I have no like how the [ __ ] did I do this I understand how I can watch a TV show and be distracted but how did I say the words inside of my own mind I know and not take any I had to say it myself and um yeah the the interesting thing you said about being around friends this is another thing I've realized the challenges of training the Mind whether it's through meditation or through CBT or through Psychotherapy or through whatever um being around friends that eat healthily and regularly go for walks will probably result in you eating healthily and going for walks or at least you're not going to be smoking as much or they you know sort of social influence in that way they get up on time they don't go out and party they don't cheat on their Partners you know all of these things many habits that people want to develop um can be things that you embibe you sort of you you you get you absorb from being around people that also do those things and being around people that are sort of thoughtful and mindful and peaceful and gentle and inquisitive and curious and loving caring [ __ ] like yes give me more of that but ultimately you being able to access that level of presence is only a you thing so I I do get the sense that kind of the final frontier for anyone that wants to do the you know Sigma male personal growth Lone Ranger [ __ ] thing anybody that really wants to do that it's got nothing to do with what you can Flex on your social media it's got everything to do with what the texture of your own mind feels like it definitely does and you know and I'm not going to Discount the power of like who we allow to influence us like because I've seen that work in in multiple ways like my wife and I we both stopped drinking um and just taking any intoxicants it's been a number of years it's been like since 2016 since I last like drank and smoked marijuana or did did anything right like taking zero intoxicants and I've noticed over time you know not only did I have to like rebuild friendships because so much of of friendship is pretty ritualistic like you know we come together we smoke a joint we come together we have a drink um but I realized that you know my key friends the ones that I've been friends with with for years they after a few months they really didn't care they got over it pretty quickly but there was an interesting Dynamic where when my wife and I were you know we would go out to dinner with friends and whatnot or be at a party like one time we were talking we're like hey are they drinking less than they normally do because we're cuz they're around us like are we like having some sort of you know un unsaid thing like we're not asking them not to drink but just because we're around they like totally slow down and we find some sort of balance and like the other end of that is that in 2020 my wife and I we moved up to um Western Massachusetts and this little town out here that's near The Meditation Center that we often go to and out here there are so many people who have been meditating for decades like people whove been meditating way more than I have you know like 20,000 30 40 50,000 hours of meditation you know been meditating for for decades and decades and these people are weapons like their minds are just literally you would not believe how cultivated they are and these are people who they don't write books they don't have Instagrams they're just so like all they do is serve others and they just you know they generate peace and they have simple lives and and work but they're such hardcore meditators and being around these people has helped sort of fire up and like give even more energy to that effort that I'm applying in my own mind because I'm around them and I'm like [ __ ] like I want to be like this dude when I'm 70 you know like this this guy's like when I think about like you know my teacher Barry like this guy is just like he's 76 so unafraid of death like so kind doesn't want to hurt anyone and anything and is so simultaneously living in his power like he is a leader and he's just like you feel his peace move with him and he doesn't get caught up in other people sort of like energetic troubles and it's it's awesome so to me I'm like damn I'm trying to be like this dude uh what have you learned about the problem of struggling to connect with people when you start to do personal growth you know some people come along for the ride um but if you've sat with your emotions if you've started to do even kind of a modicum of self-work um you can have a challenge to connect with people in the same way that you used to yeah I think it's because you're you end up changing the play you know like I think normally when we have long-term relationships or friendships um we sort of fall into this like rhythm of how we do things the things we joke about and when you start really applying the fact that identity is flexible that your preferences can evolve that you can change your emotional skill set and improve it then that's going to you know it's going to directly impact the way that you behave and show up in interpersonal situations some people are taking back and I've noticed that you know like I remember when I stopped when I first stopped doing cocaine like back in like 2011 like I used to party all the time and I remember this one guy he was stressed that I stopped he was like just so like some it was calling to him and I remember he like screamed at me and was like dude stop being a [ __ ] like do you know just like do the line and I'm like s some cocaine yeah and I'm like you know haven't seen this guy since like he's he's just like on the other side of the world I don't even know where I wish him the best and and I can tell that it just it wasn't really about me it just it scared him about himself but I think when you start changing yeah some people are going to be absolutely repelled but also new people are going to appear I think it was at that same time that I ended up meeting one of my best friends anoir who is just so dedicated to his personal growth and his Fitness and it's it was like this is like the exact friend that I needed at that moment when I was trying to develop a healthier mind and a healthier body yeah it's so funny I did um maybe 27 28 probably uh I stopped drinking for the first time and I didn't I didn't drink that much but every fortnite or so I'd send it and that's like classic classic club promoter Drinker right professional party boy [ __ ] and um I like I I I just don't think that I'm going to drink uh for six months I'm going to see what happens if I don't drink for six months and something not too dissimilar happened which was some people got spiky around it um because I think it if somebody starts to make a positive change or even just any change especially a positive change uh it throws into sharp contrast the areas of your life where you're not behaving the way that you should do you know if you keep cheating on your misses every time that you go in a night out and someone gets into a new relationship and they're like you know what it is man like I just really [ __ ] love her and uh I not only do I have no desire to cheat on her I kind of don't really have that much desire to do anything else other than hang out with her it's like oh [ __ ] gay dude come on like what are you doing and um like you know cuz they these people know I think some people uh know deep down and then you've got the other friends that are like ah sweet man I'm going to go [ __ ] this girl that isn't my girlfriend like and that's a different category of that's a different category of friend but um yeah the other side that's super interesting I think about this a lot we like people who are easy to predict I think we like people who feel reliable like I know don't worry about Diego you know he was with us on that one belief thing he's going to be sweet when it comes to immigration gun laws taxation you know whatever what voting for the next whatever it is um you don't need to worry about him but if somebody shows the capacity for surprising change MH this includes a partner as well if a partner is able to change themselves you don't have that much control over them they're kind of their own agent here they're they're a little bit Wild and Free and if they're able to change something that feels kind of fundamental about you know that the the way that uh emotionally disturbing events impact them they're able to change oh my God like that you that's really fundamental to them dot dot dot what if that means that they change the way that they feel about me right there's this fear of Abandonment there's this this this lack of predictability and then when it comes to you know friendships and stuff too um we want someone that we is just there for the ride you know we we we know that they're going to be good it's kind of like a loyalty test right not not changing yourself too much is kind of like a show of fty you know it's flying this Banner above your head that says I'm with you even if I don't want to be with you or even if I shouldn't be with you but if somebody shows that if the shouldn't is stronger than the should they're actually going to [ __ ] off they're going to change themselves yeah and I I would even take it a little step further where they ego it craves for those nearest us to have the same values and the same opinions like there's it feels it feels challenging because sometimes it sort of will trigger this response where it's like it feels like we might be left out of the herd or like someone in the tribe is like separating too far out of the tribe and you want to bring them in and and you you notice that often like you know with your sort of very close friend groups generally there's very similar views that people will have and it takes a pretty strong individual to like you know develop a connection with someone who has very just like totally different views on things and I think that makes it really hard because you have to work with the universe instead of against it and this universe that we live in at the atomic level the biological level the cosmological level everything is just flowing change we're live in this giant River of change that only flows forward what does that mean for our personal identities that means that we are beings of change that means that what my preferences my likes my dislikes my beliefs what they were five years ago they're not going to be the same right now they're going to evolve and hopefully they evolve because if I try to remain static what that means is I'm trying to flow against the universe and that's just going to hurt right so you have to adapt you have to have flexibility you have to allow yourself to learn new things so that you're perspectives can keep evolving and that is challenging for friendships and for connections because I have no control over what my my wife believes in she's the most important person in the world to me but her beliefs are her owns to to create because like her mind is hers what about the challenge of moving slowly and in a considered way in the modern world it's fast there's lots of distraction and yet kind of what you're saying here is hey be intentional with the way absolutely absolutely these two things are in Conflict they totally are but I don't care I think about this all the time I'm like you know I have all these different people that I work with I've been really fortunate I'm releasing my fifth book and so you know I have agents that I work with different people that I sign contracts with Publishers and whatnot and I never allow myself to be rushed into decisions I never sort of you know I do my best to only say yes to what feels right and what I can actually do as opposed to just doing what other people want me to do and to be able to do that it requires me moving slowly moving intentionally so you know if you don't get a a text from me immediately it's because like I'm living my life you know give me some time to think and I think it's it's hard but I that's the challenge that you need to take if you really want to you know embrace your own power and this like this world is moving absurdly fast like we move so fast and you see this a lot with you know when things happen politically where one person puts up a story and they're like this is what's happening this is my view and then you don't read anything about it and then immediately you put up the same view same idea when you haven't even looked at what the situation is so I I'm the perfect example is I went to this Meditation Retreat I was gone for 45 days totally silent had didn't have my computer didn't have my cell phone during that time the Ukraine war started and when I was when I finished a retreat I came back out I went on Twitter and um I was like hey just came back from 40 45 day Retreat what did I miss and people were like don't look at the news like you know it's gonna ruin your peace blah blah blah and I was like oh [ __ ] like I I have no idea what happened so I'm looking around and then I look I go on Instagram and I see all these intense stories you know people War people against War people this that that and I'm like I have no idea and then people are asking me what do you think I'm like I have no idea what I think I just literally just got here I need to go take some time to read some articles make sure that they're from places that are not biased that are you know so I can try to develop my own view on the situation but I think that that moment like honestly was really helpful to be like I I don't need to just say what the herd is saying because I'm afraid of being left out you also don't need to keep up to date this this beautiful idea um which you'll be familiar with called signal versus noise and um is the information that you're taking in something that's actually worthwhile and going to stick about for a long amount of time or is it kind of just fluff within the system and um a perfect example of this would be you mentioned the S&P earlier on yeah you you could be long the S&P and you could check the price of it every single day for an entire year within that there is a [ __ ] ton of noise intraday trading all of the movement of the price oh my God this this week it's up this this week it's down this much and you're assuming that you're not totally uh detached emotionally you're going to get ragged around at the Merc the mercy of the market it's going to say today you should feel good yes tomorrow you should feel bad lot of noise not that much signal if you checked it once a year you're like huh I can assume pretty reliably that most of the uh information I'm getting is a lot of signal right across the space of a y look at the entire all of the little wobbles ups and downs and you can see oh my God that was the week that Co happened look at the 20 point drop 20% drop in the it came back up and it did the rest of it thing it's like yeah so that is signal as opposed to noise and I feel like Daily News is just that it's like it's ripping your emotional state around in the same way actually going back to what we spoke about the very beginning this sort of very effective prison guard mean prison guard torturer that you've got inside of your own mind let's say that you had a really miserable day 3 weeks ago on Wednesday and um there was something you were real worried about and you know that you had a sad day if you knew that you had a sad day and you hadn't journaled about it could you tell me why you were sad probably not it was just all noise it was ruminating about a thing that you were worried would happen but didn't ever happen and after you imagined the thing that wasn't going to happen would happen you can't even recall the fact that you were [ __ ] worried about it right like that is that is actually kind of like a definition of insanity you know it's this weird version of sort of suffering schizophrenia where you inside of your own mind create this entire landscape of problem and challenge y that in retrospect you couldn't even recall but you know the time's gone that weddingday three weddingday ago that weddingday was lost that wedding day was lost to thought that you can't even recall in the future I it's so funny because like you remember how you felt right you remember how you felt in your body and you remember that it wasn't a good day but the contents of it they're totally Superfluous they're they're not important and I think it's it doesn't surprise me because this is such a common human experience but one of the most popular posts that I've written was something along the lines like um maturity is not trusting your mind when your mood is low and not doing any sort of self assessment when your mood is low and it's understanding that like when the when the mind is feeling a lot of sadness a lot of heaviness and it's just full of self-doubt then of course it's going to point the the attention back to you and you're going to start doing all this nonsense self-analysis that has no value because you're like I'm so bad at this I'm so bad at that I'm you know I'm terrible I'm I'm not a good person and it's like you have to totally learn to just not pay attention in the moments because yes there are of course times when you should do self analysis and usually those times are in moments when your mind is a little more balanced when you can tell yourself what you're good at and what you're not good at but if you're just beating yourself down then there's no point there's no there's no you know you can't listen to that nonsense and another thing you know like you we talk about repetition a lot but that takes a lot of repetition for you to recognize o my mind is throwing around a bunch of nonsense right now let me not grab it I'm going to treat myself gently and I'm going to try to move around the day you know pretty calmly it's the same reason that you should never go shopping when you're hungry yeah it's It's Tricky it's hard because like the mind is always like it and I've noticed this tendency a lot where emotions will try to expand themselves you know whether it's Joy you know we will share that Joy with others and we want to like you know treat other people kindly but it's the same thing when we're angry like we invite others to join us in our anger what either by saying something that gets them upset or by just telling them like oh this happened to me and that happened to me and it and you'll notice that your friend will slowly over time get angry with you and the emotion will keep building and growing we also do the same thing in our own minds you know I have this there was this beautiful moment in our relationship where my I my wife was working in this room here and I was working in the kitchen and we were apart for like 2 three hours both working on our laptop and she comes into the room laughing and I was like hey what's up she's like I just spent the last three hours trying to figure out how this tension in my mind is your fault and she was like I just kept going backwards and further and further back in time to figure out how this is your fault and she's like and it's not it has nothing to do with you I just don't feel good today and I'm like wow that's I mean for one thank you because you saved me from an argument but also you know that's real wisdom right there what a beautiful level of self-awareness dude you know to have someone that's going to sit with the thing and investigate it and investigate it and investigate it and then go yeah this is a me thing this is a me thing yeah the one of my friends George keeps texting me uh different times when you should never trust your thoughts so uh I I maybe it's rouso that said uh never trust a thought that you have indoors that basically you should always be on a walk when you have a thought uh never trust the thought you have when you're uh on less than 6 hours sleep is probably never trust never trust a thought that you have when you're hungry never trust a thought that you have after 10 p.m. at night um you know there kind of actually a when you think about it it's a very small window of time and scenarios in which you should trust your thoughts yeah yeah you know it's it's I've been noticing more and more lately that I try to lean in on like the three internal guides which are your values your intuition and your nervous system you know so I'm when I'm trying to make like big decisions I have a a set of values right probably the most important one is like I don't want to hurt myself and I don't want to hurt other people so that's like a key framework that I try to exist inside of and then the other end is like is my intuition pushing me towards this direction does that does this feel correct and the other side of that is with with your nervous system is like am I already so overworked that I feel fried like do I feel fried already and if I add this is it going to make things worse or better and using those three guides I I think has been super helpful because like I said before thoughts are flimsy I don't give them a lot of credence they're not they're not very you know stable um but I think with uh you know intuition hasn't really led me astray it's really been and it's not like it's not a an often thing it's not like something that you know it's not telling you left or right it just it will come slowly especially with big chapters like it'll help open up new chapters in in my life and um I'm glad I've been able to listen where does self-love come from in your opinion I think it just it comes from embracing the fact that there's a lot inside of you I think self-love is literally just turning that lens Inward and you having deep deep acceptance over your emotional history you know the good things that have happened the tough things that have happened you're sort of cognizant of it you're aware of it you're able to hold that history inside of yourself and you're simultaneously saying okay I've felt a lot of pain in the past I'm very imperfect but I'm going to choose to start developing qualities that are going to help me make better decisions in life so it's a mixture of self-acceptance and embracing personal transformation and I think it just it comes from what we were talking about earlier people are just exhausted by being miserable you know it it felt like like when I was growing up in the '90s it didn't feel very emotionally hopeful if I were to say it was just like you're kind of stuck whatever your situation is is what you have and I think part of the reason that this Wellness movement has exploded is that people are like I need to figure out how to be happier and part of that it's been interesting is figuring out okay I need to P spend more attention on myself and try to cultivate myself but that immediately that personal inner work shines a light on what you can do better in your relationships is there a relationship between that and enoughness this sort of of desire to not feel like there's something missing uh to feel whole I think so yeah I mean it's It's Tricky too because like you want to be able to accept yourself and part of self Lov is like that deep self-acceptance but human beings also we like a project I think we you know whether it's work or outside of work or personal or hobby whatever it is like we like having things to do and I think a lot of us when we you notice how much of life is relational and interpersonal it shines a light on the fact that it's worth your time to put effort into like you know improving whatever it is that's making your life harder because like you're the maker of your own suffering by large so understanding like where am I creating points of difficulty for myself and what can I do to remove them but it's you have to balance that out because you're simultaneously enough and you also have room to grow you could be more balancing those two things is so challenging because we want to have this sense of progress you know if we were to look back on the Days of Our Lives that we're most happy with it's when it's probably not when we actually achieved the thing it was when we were balls deep in the process of getting toward the thing and um both me and you are big fans of the challenging translation of the word Dua uh that I just love that every time that someone tells this story of sort of what it could be and what it might be as well can you just explain the sort of suffering dissatisfaction yeah I'm so I'm so glad you brought that up that's so cool um my goodness so one of the initial translations of duka this is a poly word that's really important in the in the Buddhist teaching um it was initially translated as misery or suffering and that sounds so intense that sounds like not dialed right it's and it's and I think that's the reality for some people for sure you know their lives have been horribly difficult and they would you know if they were to give it a word they would give it suffering I think for a lot of us it's on the other end of the spectrum where dooka can also be translated into stress or dissatisfaction where you know instead of saying life is suffering it's like life is dissatisfactory or life is stressful and that I can definitely relate to you know there's definitely been parts of life that have been full of suffering but um I think the vast majority of the time there is that sense of dissatisfaction and like being aware of that has been so helpful because you can live in a life where you know you can have the type of life where a lot of things just don't work out for you and it's a constant struggle and you could recognize that as dissatisfactory but then there's also the times when things do go well for you and you do acrew Victory after Victory but you're still incredibly dissatisfied you're still looking to build another business you're looking to do you know your next big thing and you're just appreciating nothing so that's another type of suffering and I think being aware of that helps create the beginning of Peace really because when you understand how the mind is geared towards dissatisfaction when you're able to relieve those attachments and you make the Mind lighter what you end up getting are What's called the Brahma viharas where it's just a the Divine abodes where you get so much more equinity so much more loving kindness so much more compassion and um joy for the happiness of others which is like you know one of the key elements of friendship like to be able to you know have victories like like one of our mutual friends like sahill Bloom right um he was telling me how you know he had a great time talking with you and and then I was just talking him to talking him to with him today and we were celebrating that he was on the New York Times bestseller again and you know we were like myself and our other friend Sarah kurick we were like both in the chat room and it was like we felt so much joy for this guy no jealousy just pure joy like he works so hard for this Victory and we're celebrating him and I think those those things are hard to have without recognizing first that life has has this dissatisfying quality but if you put right effort into it then you can relieve that tension so that you can have these different types of Joy different types of Peace yeah the uh I the first time I ever learned about that was in Robert Wright's why Buddhism is true oh yeah he he crushed with that book that was so good [ __ ] I mean look evolutionary psychology meets mindfulness for me is like yeah um so just realizing that most things are kind of designed to be a little bit [ __ ] than you thought that they were going to be the the orgasm is going to last less Long the holiday is going to be more complicated the cocktails not going to be quite as cold you know the the the gym routines just you're going to be too too too reps short and um I guess there's two there's two areas right so there's one which is what's the story that you tell yourself about what happened and what is the thing that you're making happen so you have your uh stimulus you have whatever the thing is that you're relating to that's environment design that's ensuring that you do you want what you want to want and you go after the things that you actually want so the sort of intentionalism approach and then the other side is okay even in the midst of something which is a little bit dissatisfying how can I try and reframe this and that's where you know the the CBT side of stuff that I'm currently really interested in is super [ __ ] powerful because you're training yourself at least currently what I'm trying to do I'm training myself on a daily basis to find all of the things that are good to try and find like arbitrary stupid small things that uh and then you realize hey these things are there for me to enjoy like the front and center of Consciousness so I kind of had this idea I wonder if you agree with this Sam Harris has a a thought that all that we're ever trying to do is give our minds a good enough reason to be here in the present moment and a lot of the time we do that through base jumping and skydiving and rock concerts and and achievements and new cars and and sex and drugs and all of the things that we do and we're trying to raise the level of stimulus to the point where we can't do anything but be in the moment Paul Bloom talks about this uh uh he spoke to a dominatrix for one of his books and uh she used this line nothing catches attention like a whip and you know if you've just been slapped across the face by a chick wearing you know tricep high leather gloves there's not much going on in your mind for 5 seconds the same thing goes for elite sporting events fighting in a ring you know all of these things just give us a good enough reason to be there in the present moment and I've kind of had it in my mind for a while that the goal as far as I can see it of the mindful person should be to try and lower the bar of external stimulus that you need in order to excuse yourself to be here in the present moment that you want to try and be able to do it naval's if you won't be present with a coffee you can't be present on a yacht quote yeah um just okay I want to try and get myself to the stage where the smallest thing really lovely gust of wind that was it was really refreshing like I really enjoyed that gust of wind and how how fortunate I am that I'm here walking in in in this good weather or this bad weather but I'm still here walking and that gust of wind was like really nice and how great that I you know I got up early today and I you know like yeah sure I got stuck in a little bit of traffic but how great that I you know I got to listen to that song that I love on the radio I got you know like you're chipping away at this negativity by you're chipping away at dooka right you're just eroding it away over and over and over and this is where again everyone's new shiny toy is the [ __ ] coolest thing that they play with so I'm kind of cautious of being fully CBT pilled about everything but um I do get the sense that there is a place for more effortful more leaning more kind of crafting this is Rick Hansen's hardwiring happiness approach this is sort of um I get the sense that there's a real place for that that at least for me uh my meditation was a great foundation for but it it's been a a good springboard on top of that that um You' like I in the the ability to have the mind be nice and clear and then come in over the top and actually actively notice things like go out of your way to to almost like lean in it feels aggressive it feels like action oriented whereas a lot of the time I think that meditation feels a little bit more kind of sitb back it's not necessarily passive but it's you know things that like let be let go let in like this stuff is sort of flowing through you a little bit and um yeah just that's that sense that there is always something pretty much that you can find in the present moment that's pretty good and and and trying to get yourself to the stage where you don't need to be on stage in front of three and a half thousand people you don't need to have just won an award you don't need to have just watched your first child be born there's um there's this element that's like you know clear in all the examples that you gave where human beings are sensation oriented Where We crave Pleasant Sensations that's why we're trying to like heighten what you were mentioning you know to bring ourselves to the present moment and because we're really craving and seeking after these moments of deep deep pleasure literally like the the feeling of pleasure in the body that can manifest us a lot of different ways um and that's the thing that we get attached to is like we We crave the things that feel good literally at the level of Sensations and we hate the things that don't feel good at the level of Sensations um when the Buddha was meditating what he realized is that his way to Freedom was not only in the body but was through the level of experiencing Sensations and being able to be fully observant and to see them as they are and part of that was bringing in the element of equinity the element of mental balance where you're not reacting to something you're just observing it as it is and I think from from the deepest inside out it's almost um you become a lot more successful when you can Dev that sense of equinity with all of your Sensations when you're able to just like feel you know you feel something painful and you're like okay that's painful but you're not necessarily reacting to it and the same thing with you know the things that are super pleasurable and it's quite powerful man like you know when when I go away to the longer Retreats like we're essentially cultivating that level of equinity with anything that we feel and the mind gets so heightened it gets so powerful over time especially if you spend you know we these long are 45 Retreats you spend 15 days um being aware of the breath and taking that ability to concentrate to a whole another level and then you take the last 30 days where you you take that concentration and turn it away from the breath but into the body and it turns the Mind into like a cannon where you can feel the body at a level that's just so more oriented to ultimate truth because your hands and your you know the rest of your body it doesn't feel like it's solid it feels like it's just changing vibrations that are moving at a you know at incredibly rapid speeds and I think having those experiences has been really helpful in the moments where you're you're a little more sensitive in a positive way where you can just like feel you know the breeze that you were talking about you can feel you know a friend having their hand on your back and it everything just becomes shinier and more vibrant but you're also a lot less attached to it because you understand that all these things are highly imper um and there's so you know because a lot of the things I'm I'm curious about your sort of meditation background because there are different forms of Vasa from the theava Buddhist background and there you know there's so many different styles of meditating but some of the vasas are a little a little more um mind and thought oriented and others are more feeling oriented where it's like you're just directly going into the body yeah yeah I would say probably more thought oriented it's shin and yung's five ways to know yourself which you probably be familiar with I really like that because it was it's the most rational procedural would be a good way to put it sort of approach to meditation right you see here feel uh uh uh Clarity equinity uh whatever the [ __ ] third one is consistency whatever it is anyway um just having a framework that you can follow quite easily and that you can step through I had a really great uh Brian Maniscalco I I used to work with this guy one-on-one during covid and and before that time and you know I'd do these check-ins and I'd have little notes you could even export your Insight time of notes after a session um so that was cool and you know be like a little training course but um yeah it's the opportunity to actually be able to just experience life without this mental chatter in the back of your mind is um is really great and I'm aware that for everybody that doesn't meditate thinks that meditation is hokey uh this is just like two two people that believe in ghosts like talking about how this [ __ ] ghosts everywhere you know what's funny is like I think people do do feel like that I think meditation has a waste to you know grow in the culture but a lot of these Traditions you know with chinen yangang with goenka with um Joseph G you know like all these different Traditions that are out there with Jack cornfield um a lot of it is really result oriented and it's really based in regular mundane life you know it's not like some like spiritual esoteric thing that's way out there it's more so based on like what qualities you need to cultivate because honestly really like when I go to a Retreats it's just the mental gym it's literally like you're going to the gym You're Building awareness You're Building Equanimity You're Building compassion and and then your life changes after that but I'm I'm always like I mean that's one of the reasons why I was so I felt at home when I got there into the meditation hall because you you know there were people there who were like doctors and consultants and people who like I don't know people who had big jobs small jobs teachers professors students it was all of these you know regular people and you're being given a teaching that isn't trying to like convert you into Buddhism or anything like that so like I don't think of myself as a Buddhist but I do have a high respect for the Buddhist teaching like I I personally believe the Buddha understood the human mind better than anyone else in human history and um but you know I don't need to like convert into a religion to like make use of that teaching yeah dude I appreciate the heck out of you I love what you talk about online I think everybody needs to follow your Instagram we came on here to talk about your new book and we got so distracted talking about meditation we haven't had chance so why don't we why don't we run this back why don't we do another episode within the next couple of weeks and we can talk about love what it is what it isn't problem of struggling to connect all of that attachment stuff but uh it was so great to get to talk about this with you and like I say at the very beginning I really really love and increasingly I'm finding myself being drawn to people that just see The Human Condition the way it is and I think you're definitely one of them so uh people need to check out new book you everything that you do online where should they go uh they can come on Instagram young Pueblo y _ pbl um also on substack and my new book How to Love better which is basically a bridge between personal growth and New Harmony in relationships you can find that in bookstores on Amazon wherever you know wherever books are but thank you man this has been a real real Joy I feel like we can just uh keep wrapping on well we will do I'll see you very soon I appreciate you man awesome thank you 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 check it out