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Alex Olshonsky on Outgrowing Addiction Into Profound Regeneration
288 Plays18 days ago
What if your burnout was never a personal failure—but a signal from a deeper intelligence calling you back into connection? In this provocative and wide-ranging conversation, Scott Schwenk welcomes Alex Olshonsky—founder of Deep Fix and former tech executive—for a raw exploration of nervous system healing, societal collapse, and the courage to grow through disintegration. They explore the soul costs of extractive work, the slow medicine of reconnection, and the power of embodied presence in a culture built on speed. A vital conversation for anyone feeling overwhelmed, disillusioned, or on the edge of a personal or collective breakthrough.
Alex Olshonsky - Tech Refugee, Hakomi Practitioner, Writer
Alex Olshonsky is a somatic therapist, coach, and writer working at the intersection of deep healing, integrated leadership, and spiritual freedom.
He’s the co-founder of Natura Care, a non-profit addiction program harnessing psychedelics, and the founder of Sons of Now, a men’s group for the metamodern man. He also writes Deep Fix, a popular Substack newsletter, and his essays have appeared in a wide range of publications.
A dozen years ago, while working in Silicon Valley, Alex was gripped by a polysubstance addiction that nearly killed him. That crisis became a turning point, plunging him into psychology, the healing arts, and the dharma. Today, he helps others navigate their own transformation with precision, compassion, and deep respect for their innate intelligence.
For over a decade, Alex has trained in contemplative, therapeutic, entheogenic, and awakening-based traditions. He’s a Certified Hakomi Practitioner whose coaching helps people recognize how unconscious patterns shape their experience—and open to the freedom and vitality that have always been waiting within. His work also draws on Internal Family Systems, Motivational Interviewing, Integral Theory, and yogic embodiment. Through his writing, teaching, and entrepreneurial work, he has helped many people reclaim their lives from numbing, distraction, and self-avoidance.
Scott Schwenk - Master Coach, Spiritual Teacher, Culture Architect
Scott’s teachings, courses and private mentoring guide leaders, seekers and creatives to explore their deepest selves in service of thriving on all levels of being, both individually and relationally.
Host and creator of the podcast The Choice To Grow, Scott is known for his hugely popular courses and workshops with OneCommune.com, Younity.com, Wanderlust Festivals, and Unplug Meditation, Scott has been catalyzing the inner evolution of others for decades: helping them to grow, transform obstacles into opportunities, and find Love within.
Apprenticeships in leadership development, meditation and philosophy training, shadow work/shadow resolution and spiritual awakening are all part of Scott’s development into the thought-leader that he is today. He continues to refine his offerings studying and practicing with key innovators at the leading edges of human development.
Scott’s teachings support the entire person to not only progressively recognize, stabilize and embody our inextricable oneness with the source of creation (Waking Up), but also to resolve the wounds of the past (Cleaning Up), continually expand our capacities for wider and more inclusive perspectives on any moment (Growing Up) and creatively and joyfully participate and collaborate with all of life as a loving thriving human being (Showing Up).
You can receive a free guided meditation and explore Scott’s courses, workshops, retreats, training and master coaching at https://scottschwenk.com and can find him on Instagram @thescottschwenk.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'The Choice to Grow' Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to The Choice to Grow. I'm Scott Schwenk. Through these dialogues, we'll explore fresh perspectives and discover practical tools for navigating a thriving life that adds value wherever we are.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'll introduce you to innovators and creators from across our world who embody what it means to cultivate growing as a way of life. Let's prepare together.
00:00:24
Speaker
Take a deep breath in.
00:00:28
Speaker
Hold the breath briefly as you soften your shoulders and soften the soles of your feet and palms of your hands.
Breathing Exercise for Tension Release
00:00:35
Speaker
Then exhale like you're releasing tension and setting down a heavy burden from every cell.
00:00:41
Speaker
Ah. Now let's dive in.
Meet Alex Olshansky: Background and Work
00:00:48
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody, to The Choice to Grow. I'm delighted to bring you somebody that I've known for quite some time now, and we met early on in quarantine through immersion dialogue group.
00:01:01
Speaker
Alex Olshansky is a somatic therapist, coach, and writer working at the intersection of deep healing, integrated leadership, and spiritual freedom.
Transformation Through Addiction: Alex's Story
00:01:12
Speaker
He's the co-founder of NaturaCare.
00:01:14
Speaker
It's a nonprofit addiction program that's harnessing psychedelics. And he's also the founder of Sons of Now, which is a men's group for the metamodern man. He also writes DeepFix, which is a popular sub-stack newsletter.
00:01:29
Speaker
And his essays have appeared in a wide range of publications internationally. A dozen years ago, while he was working in Silicon Valley, Alex was gripped by a polysubstance addiction that nearly killed him.
00:01:42
Speaker
That crisis became a real turning point and it plunged him into psychology, the healing arts and the Dharma. Including, he completed his studies with Hakomi, and we'll talk a little bit about what Hakomi therapy is. It's quite fascinating and integrated.
00:01:57
Speaker
Today, he helps others navigate their own transformation with precision, compassion and deep respect for their innate intelligence. For over a decade, Alex has trained in contemplative, therapeutic, entheogenic, and awakening-based traditions.
00:02:13
Speaker
He is a certified Hocomi practitioner whose coaching helps people recognize how unconscious patterns shape their experience and open to the freedom and vitality that have always been waiting within.
00:02:26
Speaker
His work also draws on internal family systems, also called Parts Work, motivational interviewing, integral theory, that's the work of Ken Wilber, and yogic embodiment. Through his writing, teaching, and entrepreneurial work, he's helped so many people reclaim their lives from numbing, distraction, and self-avoidance.
00:02:44
Speaker
He is living in Oakland Hills with his partner, Grace, and their new baby boy. So that's a full life. i In my experience of working with Alex, he we quickly transitioned from the emergent dialogue group where we we're really talking about, it started because of the black rights Black Lives Matter movement and a whole bunch of people coming together that Alex invited to really look at our perspectives freshly and be willing to challenge each other's perspectives to have a wider embodied compassion and skillfulness in life.
00:03:21
Speaker
Shortly after that, he became a client for a while. and then moved really, really deep into his Okome training and so many other things. So without further ado, I just want to get right into it with Alex. He's one of the most clever people I know, very nimble minded, very open minded and very curious, reminds me so much of me in a lot of ways.
00:03:42
Speaker
So without further ado, Alex, I'm just so happy to have you here and see where this wants to go together. But first, share with us a little bit about the poly substance addiction transition you're so good with words maybe even just poly substance more than one yeah scott thanks so much for having me it's a pleasure to be here and i was reminded as you were sharing when we originally met yeah you came into the the dialogue groups that we were hosting. And i remember your your perspective really elevated what we were doing in that group.
Understanding Addiction: Early Signs and Realizations
00:04:19
Speaker
And so I appreciated that. And I just remember that, like getting into David Baum and on dialogue. And so, yeah, kudos for that. um And it's of a good reminder that polysubstance is of maybe a little bit jargony. It is a technical addiction term, but what what it does mean is yeah multiple substance. And so I think the reason I ah use that is because to let people know that it wasn't just one thing. It was many, many things that I had a very severe debilitating relationship with that ultimately ended up consuming pretty much every facet of my life. And so
00:04:54
Speaker
What were the obvious notes to you that it was debilitating? Yes. So um i mean, in this, we we can go as deep as you want here, but I'll just do my best.
00:05:06
Speaker
When I was ah from a young age, I looking back, the the threads were obvious that I was that I had addiction. But growing up, ah in ah in a like party-oriented environment. It didn't seem like that big of a problem. And then even in college, that became an identity.
00:05:22
Speaker
It didn't seem like a major problem. It wasn't presenting in a problem in the way that um I thought it eventually would, or I realized it eventually would.
00:05:33
Speaker
And so basically when I was a young man, when I was 25 or so living and in the Bay Area, working in tech, I had been subsumed by tech. I started waking up ah in the morning with cold sweats, withdrawal, leg tremors, severe ah physical withdrawal symptoms, mostly from the opiates at that time.
00:05:54
Speaker
Eventually i faced withdrawal from other narcotics as well. But it was at that moment when I was like, wait, something's really wrong here.
The Breaking Point and the Need for Change
00:06:03
Speaker
And I had no tools, no framework to understand what was happening with me. And so I literally just thought that I was dealing with a physical, biological, chemical problem.
00:06:12
Speaker
I took too many of these painkillers that produced a negative physical effect. And if I stopped that, all my, I wouldn't have any more problems. Like I had just gotten myself into this very biological dilemma that, um, I didn't know how I ended up in. And like, I didn't, you know, I was like, I'm not and a drug addict or an alcoholic like that.
00:06:36
Speaker
That's not me. I just I just have this problem with with opiates. So that's really how it started. and then from there, it it just got worse and worse. And for the first several years, I I sought support in secret because I was very ashamed. i didn't want anyone to know about this, even though for those closest to me, it was getting increasingly obvious.
00:07:02
Speaker
And so I sought medical treatment in secret, again, believing that just what I was dealing with was a physical problem. And so the paradigm I was in was like, you go to a doctor when you have a problem.
00:07:14
Speaker
And so that's what I did. And I tried um doing Suboxone treatment, which is basically an opiate antagonist, a way to safely wean off opiates without experiencing what can sometimes be very, very, very debilitating and painful withdrawal.
00:07:30
Speaker
um And that just process continued and continued and it was at i at times um get off for a little bit, but um ultimately it continued and I dug myself deeper and deeper into a hole where then I became addicted amphetamines, benzodiazepines, so like Xanax.
00:07:53
Speaker
and when I say amphetamines, it was really Adderall, cocaine. And i was essentially treating my body like a chemistry lab, taking uppers during the day, taking the Xanax and the and the the benzos to ah take the edge off and painkillers throughout and sleeping pills at night, horse tranquilizers. i mean, you you really, you you name it. And it was um quite intense. And while this was all happening,
00:08:22
Speaker
I was somehow holding together a career in technology. And so externally, it seemed like things were going okay. But internally, it got worse and worse. And then, yeah, you know the consequences continued until I hit my breaking point in which I had the took the choice to grow.
Grace and Surrender in Recovery
00:08:46
Speaker
but thinking about your and there's you know I'm happy to to double click on and um any of that there, but yeah there's a lot. And so I'll pause. What's really arising to ask you about is when you hit what you're calling your bottom, and that's different for everybody, like that that, okay, something's got change and it's got change now moment.
00:09:10
Speaker
Where or how did you notice or when grace, the power of grace? i don't mean the name of your wife but or your partner. and When did you notice grace? And how? It's really good question.
00:09:33
Speaker
I, it's a lot easier to, to notice the grace and in hindsight sure at at the time. So what, what happened was, um, basically I had been through failed secretive treatments for many times. I had spent all my money. I'd gone into six figures of debt.
00:09:50
Speaker
I had lost jobs. I had, um, basically got into the point where, and you know, I was pawning electronic, like I was literally living a life that someone with my sort of background from who had hustled his way into the Ivy league and was working with a very shiny tech career, wasn't supposed to be doing the things that I was supposed to be doing. And yet I found myself in that position. And so at a certain point I had,
00:10:16
Speaker
I had literally no more money to access. And I was, ah as you mentioned, a clever guy and I found ways to take out loans and to, you know, there, there's a lot of ways you can, you can get money until you can't.
00:10:29
Speaker
And so I had exhausted that resource. I had, the physical withdrawal was so bad that at at a certain point with this type of deep addiction, your body just, the high only lasts for a few hours and then the crash is just so strong.
00:10:47
Speaker
And so if you don't have but and an endless supply, like you're just gonna be in constant pain. and And so I was experiencing just like really deep emotional, physical and psychological pain in the body. And um at that time I had,
00:11:02
Speaker
somehow got in another very um sexy job at the time, which was a ah a job at Slack, which is a big innovative Silicon virus
Metacognition and Healing Through Awareness
00:11:11
Speaker
Valley darling.
00:11:12
Speaker
And I had lost that job i after only being there three months and that thing was going to be the thing that saved me. And I just found that out. And then at the time i i came home and told my my now ex-wife about it. And um that was very difficult. And it felt like she was just like, really more of this.
00:11:33
Speaker
And it felt like at that moment, I realized that I had no other options where I had no money, no job. a marriage. It was a fresh marriage that was teetering on the verge of collapse and I had nothing else to do. And so that's the moment where I was really brought to my knees and I was I remember a specific moment just in the living room on my knees crying and just literally literally it's the quintessential bottom moment where I was like, I'll do anything.
00:12:05
Speaker
What do i how do i live I don't even know how to live. I don't know how to handle my life. and I will try something. And so that certainly was grace for me.
00:12:15
Speaker
And at the time it didn't, it felt like agony, but I had been so thoroughly and sufficiently humbled, which is what I needed for a guy like me who was able to cut corners and to keep a charade going, a charade going that I was still managing to keep things together. um And then it was so embarrassing.
00:12:37
Speaker
for me to to like lose another job, to not have money, to not be able to handle life. like that as a I think I was 27, 28 years old at the time and I was really, really embarrassed. And yet that was the ah humbling moment that I needed to just be like, I'm open to help and I'm open to trying new things.
00:12:59
Speaker
And so when I think of grace, ah I think of like, so yeah, letting this current of life carry you. And I think that was probably the first honest moment I had in my life.
00:13:11
Speaker
And so that was a long answer. Beautiful. I mean, really helpful. Beautiful in its painfulness. Beautiful in the sense of like,
00:13:23
Speaker
I feel like it can open all of us who are listening to really introspecting and going, where have I been engaging in any behavior that's harmful to myself or another and have been unwilling or unable to stop?
00:13:39
Speaker
And what did I do about it? Or what am I going to do about it? You know before we when we were in the green room for the podcast, we were talking about you were mentioning the addiction to thought.
00:13:52
Speaker
which I've definitely been observing and watching. I've had so many clients over the years who are in some stage of healing the addiction process, the addiction cycle.
00:14:03
Speaker
And I remember early on, I think I had just moved to this apartment where I'd done so much work in person with private clients.
00:14:14
Speaker
Having this realization as I was sitting with another client who was in recovery that There's not a distinction but what between what people in the 12-step world call normies and people who are so-called addicts. like We all have an addiction until we don't, particularly it begins with believing untrue thoughts and grasping at things that are temporary, which all forms are, to get something that seems missing or wrong.
00:14:47
Speaker
that fundamental step of like, where am i projecting that a person, place or substance can give me something that seems to be missing? I mean, barring like food and water and you know hugs and like that.
00:15:01
Speaker
And some people would argue that sex is a basic need, but that too can get twisted. So where where are you around all that at this current moment in your observation of yourself and clients?
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate that framing quite a bit. And because it's what I've learned through this process is that yeah where we always are chasing some sort of external object to bring us happiness.
00:15:26
Speaker
And I think everyone does that. And so the the way I orient around addiction is as you pointed out, it's not just the people in church basements or huddled up on the side of the street who are dealing with addiction, but especially in modern society with technology, like we're all swimming in this sea of consumerism and distraction.
00:15:48
Speaker
and so there's the little, there there are the so many ways in which modernity can distract us externally. But then like what we're talking about and you're pointing to here is the deeper realization is that there is a compulsive and often unconscious
00:16:08
Speaker
hooking into the story and into thoughts. And Once you realize that, like, oh, wow, like I've actually just been fully identified and enmeshed with something that I'm telling myself and often that these stories are have some degree until we are fortunate enough to work on it, some degree of a negative core belief, like I'm not worthy, I'm not enough.
00:16:35
Speaker
I'm wrong or small or insufficient in some way. And so, yeah, I think with other folks, um I noticed that it can be really difficult to actually chip away into the identification with thoughts and the thought structure. However, that's where the biggest change can happen.
00:16:57
Speaker
Well, in terms of stage development, as people who I study, the stages of adult ego development psychologically through the work of Terry O'Fallon, whose work stands on the shoulders of Suzanne Cook-Greuter, and that we move through stages like you know your kid is in a first-person perspective.
00:17:15
Speaker
Everything is me for that first-person perspective. There's no separation. So there's not like this is daddy's glass. No, it's all mine. It's all mine.
00:17:26
Speaker
Right. um And then we move on up if all things go well, but many people can, according to the research, especially you know in our country, tap out at a third-person rational perspective. And the research seems to bear out that to become aware of my own thinking only starts to barely develop at the end of a third-person perspective.
00:17:52
Speaker
Fourth person perspective is still the leading edge in this country, according to statistics. It's new. It's like that's where somebody first actually gets interested in shadow work and develops the metacognition, the ability for me to think about my thinking or observe in action my emotions and maybe begin to course correct. So how do we address the addiction to thought itself with people who aren't yet there developmentally to have that recognition?
00:18:22
Speaker
That's a great question. And that's a big one. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it for one, but what I've found that is often the the most or one of the most effective gateways is the body. And because of thoughts are happening in some sort of container and that container is this body and the body, if you go from, of course, a deeper level, it doesn't just end with the the soma or the skin, but it actually can extend really just into the the whole space. But what I've found can be really helpful is to just allow people to first, what when um there are a lot of thoughts happening, to ground into the feet, the back body, something that's really big and Hakomi working with the Take us straight through it just briefly so we can experience it, all of us together.
00:19:16
Speaker
Take us through a bit of would just simple grounding through the body. Yeah. Yeah. And so one of the things that I might do first is just taking a deep breath in through the nose, noticing how that builds a slight suspension in the head, and then keeping that suspension lifted, just letting everything else from the the shoulders, neck down, just sink into the seat.
00:19:38
Speaker
And as you do that, you can really feel your back body making contact with the chair. If you're sitting,
00:19:47
Speaker
And then just spend a moment really noticing how your back is supported.
00:19:55
Speaker
When we route into the back body, it signals safety to the brainstem. And so it really is this great way to just slow down. And then you can notice the soles of the feet,
00:20:11
Speaker
the hands,
00:20:15
Speaker
And from here, you can see how this awareness can toggle from many different places within the body, just so effortlessly prompting you from the back body to the hands, to the feet.
00:20:29
Speaker
And you can see in this way that you can use the body as a resource. And so just something like that gets can be a big unlock for people where they don't even actually understand this very basic, innate human capacity to toggle awareness from different parts of the body.
00:20:46
Speaker
And when you do it like that, um it creates what and we call this also somatic resourcing, where something can be going on really intense in the head or even in another part of the body.
00:20:58
Speaker
But there's always pockets within the body that are at least neutral. And then typically there are often when you pay close enough attention, pockets that feel pleasant or positive.
00:21:09
Speaker
And so that when someone is really thought identified or or in that hasn't, you know, grok to fourth person perspective. I think that the getting some basic skill building in this domain can be really useful because once you can bring awareness to these different parts of the body, you can then begin to observe the thoughts from the awareness that's holding it all.
The Power of Relaxation in Growth
00:21:37
Speaker
But you tell me, how does that sound for you, Scott? It sounds very similar to what I would prompt and guide with my own clients and students in my courses. um you know You know, I teach the six points of softening, like softening.
00:21:50
Speaker
Imagine you have a fist that's really tight and you're opening it just with your mind, ah bringing that feeling through the soles of the feet, palms of the hands, the corners of the eyes, the region inside and around the ears, the tongue.
00:22:02
Speaker
and all the muscles of the pelvic floor groin region. And then for with that, once that's established to slow, radically slow the exhales and with each exhale have the feeling that one is setting down a heavy burden, like coming in from the airport with a suitcase, setting down a heavy burden from every cell, just make it up that it's easy and just stay with that and start to get a taste.
00:22:27
Speaker
And I feel like with newer students or clients who are earlier in their development, touch it, let it go, talk about something else, come back, touch it again, let it go, touch it, let it go.
00:22:40
Speaker
Many small recognitions over time. Yes, yes. Right. That's such a good point. And in something that I do often, especially in my one on one work, is a really great way to do this for someone who's very new to it is it just like, hey, what's what are you feeling in your body right now?
00:22:58
Speaker
And you just pause and you just continually every 10 minutes or so, at least. invite that invitation. And what you know you'll find is what I found is people who never look in in that way, they actually almost always, even if they have a lot going on and there are lot of hardship, it's enjoyable because it's like, what is it that I'm feeling?
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah. It's a revelation for so many people like whose attention and senses have been unknowingly, they've been just out, going out, out to actually get permission to rest in the moment and in the structures of the body and just the physicality of the chair and the floor is like a moment of freedom.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. And I love you. Oh, sorry. so sorry Oh, good. No, I was just saying I love your six points of softening because I think that was something that, you know, when we were working together, i remember you would always point to that, but it it it really took a few years for that to really land how important it is to relax the body.
00:24:04
Speaker
And that, that, and but one of the ways that I've been working with is this, this sinking in feeling, which I guided a little bit, what are you you just allow the exhales for everything just feels like it's sinking. Like you're almost like if you were imagining that you were holding a big water balloon. with with, with some space between your hands and that the bottom of it would just sag down into the seat or into the earth.
00:24:26
Speaker
And there, there's something just really subtle about just even though it almost can just be setting the intention to just like sink. And that seems to do something to the nervous system, prompting a a ventral vagal response and actually slowing things down. And,
00:24:43
Speaker
What's also interesting about that sinking in method is that apparently um there's there's a ah host of research that shows that one of the best way to develop and grow into stages of meditative growth or to sink in whenever you notice a glimpse or an opening.
00:25:02
Speaker
And that sinking in really means just basking or allowing attention to rest on dissolves grasping. It's also the energy of chasing and grasping so quickly. Right. Exactly right. that And all the other benefits like building proprioception, interoception, the ability to know where my body is in space without having to look and then becoming more nimble with the body in space.
00:25:26
Speaker
like so many benefits, the ability to like go beyond ordinary thought mind into awareness itself. For me, the path is so simplified, whether it's growing up or waking up, that the only barriers aren't barriers. They're they're held forms of tension mentally, physically, or in the field of of energy around the body.
00:25:49
Speaker
that can be released really, really simply that actually are self resolving in the space of relaxation. Like my teacher, Sally Kempton said it from the get go,
00:26:01
Speaker
And that's what really helped me enter and get meditation that even advanced practitioners don't relax the body enough that the whole thing is how deeply can I relax into the body.
00:26:13
Speaker
And not just when there's an intentional practice that I want to benefit from but like in a conversation or in an email situation or whatever and I remember um The first time somebody was cueing that sinking in, but including the organs, the interior organs, like oh going through that, like started with the physical body, the feet pressing into the floor, we were laying down, knees up, the back is relaxing into the floor, of the head, and then it was like, the digestive organs are finding their place.
00:26:46
Speaker
The brain is sinking into the earth, like, oh, wow, it was like revolutionary for me. I didn't realize the level of tension that seemed to be held in the nervous system around the organs.
00:27:00
Speaker
m That's super cool. That reminds me, yeah, one of my favorite prompts is around letting the eyes really settle and sink into the socket. But I'll have to play with that one, the brain and the in the stomach. And you also, you you so but you talked about the clenching the fist and letting it go. And I think that's the thing that is probably there's no better pointer than that because it really is that simple. It's not something that you do.
00:27:26
Speaker
It's something that you stop unconsciously doing, which is gripping and holding. And then so for me, I've I've had the relationship with a lot of folks and sometimes myself too, that the the idea of stopping.
00:27:44
Speaker
Is threaded through with early life criticism. Just stop it. Just stop it. And if I can't stop it or I don't feel like I can stop it, then I'm in self-criticism all very, very quickly.
00:27:56
Speaker
Whereas i like to bring in Daniel P. Brown's work with healing a adult attachment wounds. So like, can I bring in the five resources of healthy attachment? Can I bring in like irradiate my own body mind or imagine ideal enlightened parents sitting with me radiating me like the sunshine with safety and protection, attunement, I see you seeing me, I know you see me, I don't have to explain myself, soothing and comfort, express delight and support and encouragement for my best self. and
00:28:28
Speaker
And just we like weaving through those five again and again and again, There's more willingness of the scared parts to trust it's okay to relax and something bad's not going to happen because there are a lot of people I've encountered that relaxation that their neighbor is like really benefiting from and just like, woo, this is the best thing ever.
00:28:50
Speaker
For them, it's terrifying and confronting, let alone to close their eyes because they have a body memory that when I relaxed, something bad happened. That's the story.
00:29:02
Speaker
Yes, yes. And that what that reminds me is that I was someone who started very much where I had to summon a lot of doing energy and a lot of activity in order to but to almost like almost hack my way into relaxation. And so you're right to point this out because what what I'm describing now, of just being able to like relax my body. And even as you talk about relaxing the organs, I can feel something shifting in me, but that that definitely wasn't always the case, um you know, with my disposition and having
00:29:35
Speaker
the type of recovery that I went through. I, I had to do a lot of activity, you know, like to almost to be a little bit more vigilant and rigorous in my trying to relax and trying to get well.
00:29:49
Speaker
Um, and so I do think that there is this also like a developmental journey around it where it's like, ah it's okay if you have to, at times feel like you're trying to let go or attempting to soften, because eventually that will start happening on its own.
Integrating Micro Practices into Daily Life
00:30:07
Speaker
Well, permission to recognize that we we we can be, I can be on a learning curve, that I don't have to have something mastered the first time or the 20th time I'm learning it, that I could ongoing, I'm still, all these many years later, since those six points came to me in one meditation, I'm still learning from it.
00:30:27
Speaker
In the same way that I'm still accessing greater and greater depth from the first empowered Sanskrit mantra I received when I was 22, I'm 53 now, I'm still finding more and more and more and more and more and more.
00:30:40
Speaker
So for me, it's beneficial to go, okay, can I really just remind myself it's okay to be in a learning curve?
00:30:52
Speaker
That's, yeah, really beautiful. It reminds me, i appreciate you bringing in Daniel Brown's it's ideal parenting protocol. Yeah. yeah I've done only brief forays into that, but it seems very, pally I wish I was exposed to that earlier because even just reminds me of like how a an ideal parent would would totally support and remind you like, hey, you're just learning.
00:31:19
Speaker
Yeah. Like you'll get better. Yeah. Just keep softening. keep you You're doing great. Well, and Alex, my favorite thing, I'm actually giving it as a set of instructions in the current course I'm creating um as I give it, which is to do it in the mirror.
00:31:35
Speaker
i think we've talked about eye gazing in the mirror. We've both had, I know you've talked about, we've tons tremendous experience is doing with others, but to be doing it in the eyes in the mirror, my take on it, and I don't have third party research on this yet, is that my eyes don't know the difference between me looking in the mirror and radiating great love and all those five qualities of healthy attachment or somebody else doing it.
00:31:59
Speaker
My eyes are just receiving the light impulses and and the reflection back of that because I do feel that we are relational creatures.
00:32:12
Speaker
I think that's why so much healing and corrective emotional experiences happens in the therapeutic you know, to chair work or whatever, however, it's constellated, or with ah ah somebody who's got a secure attachment that we become friends or lovers with or whatever, but we don't, we can use deity, we can use an imagined ideal parent figure, we can use the field of awareness. But like, the thing is to consistently practice because how many years do I have of going the other direction?
00:32:44
Speaker
Right.
00:32:47
Speaker
Yeah. And not only for my own sake, this is the piece that I'm really finding ways to articulate with people is like, there is nothing about us that is separate from the from the whole field of aliveness of the multiverse.
00:33:06
Speaker
And i I can see more and more in my own experience that most of our pain and suffering is being in the illusion that we're separate. that we're the doer and that we're fundamentally flawed those three illusions thread into a rope that is basically feels like it's choking us until we actually get to see another perspective and experience like wait i can relax my way through this project and get more done yeah right yeah s sink yeah sinking into dow just letting the current of life carry
00:33:45
Speaker
And that also is something that I feel once once, to tie it into what we were talking about earlier, once the addiction thought begins to loosen, there is this space.
00:34:00
Speaker
And that space or presence can be just this beautiful dropping in and attunement and just to be like, oh, like, wait, I can, I don't have to try as hard. I, this thing is doing itself.
00:34:16
Speaker
And that, that's been another, um, just sort of insight or practice that's been really alive for me lately is just noticing that reality, this thing is, is turned on.
00:34:27
Speaker
It's already happening. The field is here, right? I didn't turn it on. I'm not, making your beaming face show up. It's just here, sounds arising effortlessly, the whole visual the whole visual field with all its details and intricacies, which is really like when you zoom in are pretty mind boggling just to see what like the how high 4K this whole thing is.
00:34:53
Speaker
And ah not just 4K, but the just the precision engineering of the universe to allow for this thing to be showing up here. like Once that like has that that's been really doing something for me where it's oh, okay, if this is all just happening, maybe I don't have to work so hard and get myself bunched into such a knot ah because that's something that I'm still working on, you know, I have that that too that type three Enneagram energy, which i very much had and I mentioned and that propelled me out of recovery.
00:35:25
Speaker
um i think the the next sort of phase of of of learning is really, okay, like how can I relax even more just throughout my day and soften that habitual energy of I have to do, I have to strategize, plan,
00:35:42
Speaker
yeah I don't know about you, I notice, and I've been noticing a lot more lately because I've been taking time to observe it more, that when there's a body sensation that's not comfortable or downright uncomfortable, like like an anxious, I'm talking something that more seems emotionally driven, maybe it's slightly biological in terms of maybe I'm hungry and I don't realize it, or I, you know, but did all that the habit is for the tissue, the body to contract around that sensation.
00:36:12
Speaker
And then it's just more intense. So it's like this coming in like a loving parent and going, Okay, it's it's it's it's okay, it's safe to relax everything around that area and just be with it and breathe into it and feel it fully without a story.
00:36:29
Speaker
And it will it will move. It doesn't seem like it right now, but it will move.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yes, here. Yes. Yeah, that that one, too, that has been a practice for me lately, in particular, like the i crux that's been happening for me is that especially with parenting, I've been having trouble where in general, I'm very sensitive these days and don't need much caffeine. But, you know, some nights and some days I'm just exhausted and I get into that classic dance of having too much and then noticing like uncomfortable sensation generally in the midsection and chest area.
00:37:08
Speaker
and it's uncomfortable. There's no other way to to describe it for me because I don't really need that. yeah I'm very sensitive. i have a lot of energy. And so um to your like to what you're describing, what I've tried to notice is just that there's space around that discomfort or sensation. And then eventually that seems to just allow it to wind down and to soften and just trying to like remind myself that there's an awareness that's holding whatever it is that's happening there.
00:37:39
Speaker
And that that spacious awareness is has its back, so to speak, and it's just going to allow it to do its thing. And so that's been it's I'm i'm glad you mentioned that. This is a good reminder for me these days. And also what you're pointing out is really cogent for me, which is, you know, you're talking about it with caffeine. I'm literally this week exploring it around my workout supplements.
00:38:04
Speaker
And they're not supplements that have caffeine in them, but they work with the hormones and whatnot, like Tonka Ali, tribulus, um and a few others that I don't even remember the names of that are in a stack. And I was noticing my body in those same areas you talk about getting this kind of discomfort, anxiousness,
00:38:27
Speaker
I'm like, Well, you know what, and I didn't want to last week because of my story about how it was helping me have more strength at the gym. who You know what, this is not worth it.
00:38:40
Speaker
I'm willing to be skinny and small. If that's what it takes to be at peace. You know this week, at the recording of this episode, there was an episode i were just released with my friend Dr. Alejandro younger about gut health.
00:38:55
Speaker
And like, okay, well, what if, so what if some of the things I'm experiencing that I've been trying to medicate with substances actually wouldn't be problems for me if I eliminated that food that creates inflammation in my body, or if I increased the right micronutrients that I didn't know was deficient until I got the blood work or whatever, or reducing my caffeine intake and increasing my water and hydration and and my breathing to give me more energy.
00:39:23
Speaker
or whatever, you know, like some things I think we don't realize that we are creating the problem. I have been creating the problem with my choices of food or even entertainment.
00:39:35
Speaker
This enervated state that I'm then medicating unnecessarily. I could just could just shift gears into a different way of eating that's less inflammatory or less caffeine.
00:39:49
Speaker
Totally. And it, it, what, what you're talking about reminds me how you know, when I'm, I feel very fortunate these days that the main sort of addictions that I deal with are probably caffeine and food and how, ah how easy it is to be in that dance I described of like, feeling like I need
Hakomi Therapy and Core Beliefs
00:40:09
Speaker
caffeine and when in reality that touches on so many things of like, what's it like just to be tired and to have that be okay.
00:40:17
Speaker
What's it like to run the body from awareness rather than ordinary mind? And what kind of resource can that bring in when I'm tired? That might sound really abstract to some of you listeners, but like there's a big difference between ordinary thinking and awareness.
00:40:30
Speaker
And the same Daniel P. Brown studied it in labs and fMRIs and proved over and over again. And I think his pure duplicated research, awareness moves exponentially faster than thought.
00:40:43
Speaker
And we can access this awareness that's normally tuned into thinking. for so many things, including energizing the body when the body is depleted, not long-term, you need to take care of the body, but.
00:40:59
Speaker
Totally right. And so when you allow yourself to notice like, oh, this is just what's happening, like to that, what we were talking about earlier, how like, this is just what's happening. I'm tired today.
00:41:10
Speaker
And I can just be aware of that. And I can just allow that to be. And I can also, I'd also don't have to buy into a cultural story that like I must have energy and that being tired yeah isn't okay. And when you really look at it, like what is it, what is it being tired? Being tired is really just a bundle of sensations that you then attach a label to.
00:41:31
Speaker
I'm tired. That's not ideal. Right. And so there's the story there and there's this addiction and like, yeah, what are some of the interesting science around pain suggests that it's really all based on the stories we're creating around around it.
00:41:47
Speaker
And so um what what um what I was, i think, getting at it earlier is that when When it comes to breaking some of these patterns, what I've found is that the consequences need to get to a place where you're finally like, oh, wait, it's just not worth it to keep eating.
00:42:08
Speaker
Let's say it's the whatever it food it is that's inflaming your your gut and making you unwell or taking the supplement and then feeling strung out after the gym. And that is the same principle that applies to, you know, alcohol and all the hard drugs where eventually the consequences get to the point where like, wait, why am I doing this?
00:42:29
Speaker
I actually prefer my baseline natural state to whatever is. jumbled processes that I'm doing. And once to that insight dawns, like that's when change can really happen because you recognize that, oh, there's, there's another way.
00:42:47
Speaker
Um, and so I think the, what I wanted to just highlight in that, in those examples is like, it takes really feeling and having awareness of the consequences and the pain in order to recognize that there's, you're willing to try something else.
00:43:06
Speaker
A little bit of a shift, but really including all of this, how does HOKOMI work with a client? What is the basic understanding of HOKOMI as a form of psychotherapy and healing?
00:43:20
Speaker
Yeah. The beautiful thing about HOKOMI is that I could have just met someone um and without them necessarily needing to recite everything that happened in their day and their week with everything like, oh, this Weekend, we went to the farmer's market and then I got in a fight with my partner and then I was feeling angry and my boss is so annoying.
00:43:43
Speaker
You don't actually have to hear that whole story because the fundamental premise is that we'll drop into a state of mindful awareness, guiding into the body, and then just wait and to see what the body is going to elicit.
00:43:58
Speaker
and bring up for us to explore. And so what's really nice about that is that, you know, in the same way that there are poker tells where you can be hearing the words that someone's speaking, but you can feel something else entirely based on the gestalt of their presentation.
00:44:16
Speaker
um Hakomi, we trust the body and we trust that the body is actually communicating vastly more information than our words ever can. And so when you meet with someone, what you do is essentially you create a first, you have to create a container of just supreme safety and trust.
00:44:34
Speaker
And then a lot, cause a person will be essentially coming into a really mindful state. Um, and how come you relies on present moments experience to then unfold into what's happening in the body.
00:44:46
Speaker
And you'll just keep following the prompts of what's arising. And the Hocomi practitioner will use, um, uh, language, movement, and experiential prompts and creative ideas to basically elicit um ah and unfold more of what is happening in that organic process that the body wants to express itself. And so it's built um on principles of Buddhism and Taoism and ah ultimately the psychodynamic tradition to create this really elegant way of
00:45:22
Speaker
unfolding core beliefs that shape our identity and, uh, that we often are unconsciously carrying. And, um, those two beliefs tend to, uh, form in early childhood. And so Hikomi is a great way of like unwinding these developmental wounds and childhood traumas that we carry with us today in our body.
00:45:47
Speaker
Um, I'll pause there for now. There's so much more to say, but yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. I'm sure. And I'm really delighted to see more and more practitioners who are working with helping people to transform, heal, and awaken.
00:46:07
Speaker
are bringing in these somatic approaches. Okomi is for sure not the only one. It just happens to be around, studied, researched, and deeply practiced. So there's there's an actual transmission. There's a lineage there.
00:46:20
Speaker
Right. As opposed to like one person who had a discovery and kind of sharing it here and there. um It really, for me, is the most important thing in the inner work is really including the body because otherwise conduct is not going to be affected.
00:46:38
Speaker
And you know in in the Tibetan traditions, they say, if you want to find out, well, two things, more than two, but two and but in general, you want to find out how enlightened the master is, and this sounds a little bit sexist, ask his wife.
00:46:50
Speaker
right right right or ask it's probably not the same in the reverse if it's a woman she's probably much more embodied women just due to the nature of the sensitivity having a womb and so many things tend to i think not have as many of those same issues or in the same way um but really if you want to find out how awake somebody is look at their conduct
00:47:16
Speaker
How many of us have had you and I have had things that we've had peak experiences, but they didn't they didn't become a stage that we were living from for some time. It was like a memory to talk about over cacao ceremony or something.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah. oh yeah, this big revelation. yeah but you're being an asshole right now. Like where is that revelation? Like how is that informing your body, your posture, your spinal position, your your breathing and how you treat yourself and others in difficult moments or easy moments?
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah, right. Yeah, and and I think the those moments deeper layers can get unwound through the body, through consistent revisiting of what it is that tends to be beneath the story.
00:48:12
Speaker
And so when we get to explore in this way, and to your to your your point around um working with men in particular, and I work with a lot of men and I lead men's groups and um ah oftentimes men will come into this work and it will be very foreign for them. And you you actually have to spend a good deal of time just building some basic skills around mindfulness and getting comfortable in the body and resourcing. And like, what does it mean to actually be in the body without that being uncomfortable? And so The journey can start, you know, from in so many different places. And then also if a person's holding trauma where the body is, has has it been learned to be something that's unsafe there, it can actually be a much slower, delicate process to be able to get into that.
00:48:58
Speaker
richer territory. But then for others, it just something clicks almost immediately. And they've done maybe years of traditional talk psychotherapy. But then when they come into the Hakomi space, just be being given permission to settle into the body and just to see what is going to emerge and then to keep following that thread with compassion and precision. Like it, for some people, it's just an immediate unlock and they have visits into the archetypical realm, you know, the explorations of parts unwinding, just dropped into deep Samadhi and spiritual states with no background in really meditative training or, or only minimal um exposure there.
00:49:42
Speaker
And so ah it's, yeah, it's really fascinating and it continues to humble me and, The only other thing I want to mention based on you, you, you brought this up, but I think is rather distinct about Hakomi from the other methods is that Hakomi has been around now for, i want to say 30 or 40 years.
00:49:59
Speaker
And there, you know, it is a it's it's part of the psychodynamic tradition, meaning that like really skilled therapists and psychologists have been studying it and practicing it and applying neuroscience along with mindfulness and cutting edge mind, mind, body science to, to really help understand like what it is that actually promotes long lasting change to the, when those,
00:50:28
Speaker
states can become traits. And I think that's a little different. And right now there's like somatics is pretty buzzy and sexy. And yet the Hakomi folks like Hakomi is just kind of starting to raise an awareness.
00:50:41
Speaker
um It's been a lot of these like therapists who are under the radar who or rather humble. And so it it doesn't have the, the, the splashiness, a lot of the three letter, um, psycho, ah um, therapeutic modalities that get a lot of airtime and have like a big founder who's doing a podcast circuit and a Komi has been a little different and there's a lot, um, of,
00:51:02
Speaker
practitioners who have been using Hakomi in the psychedelic um space. and And a lot of the MAPS and trained therapists have Hakomi backgrounds. um Of course, they're not they're they're separate paths. Hakomi just happens to be very beneficial for when people are in those expanded transpersonal states of consciousness.
00:51:23
Speaker
But yeah, it's been beautiful just to witness it just starting to starting to kind of come out and and and grow in terms of popularity and recognition in the culture.
Mindful Parenting: Presence and Awareness
00:51:34
Speaker
yeah I'm really happy to hear that. Really, really happy to hear that. The more, the better. you know The more this awareness expands. i really I really hope for a future. i try to vision a future where children are learning these things very early on, like learning the five forms of healthy attachment early on and learning how to resource themselves and each other in community as the primary aspect of the educational system, not a side note.
00:52:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That one hits close to home as I i have a 13 month old. And so thinking about what does it yeah what does it look like to raise a conscious boy in our modern world and how do I want to shape him in ways that I wasn't given in particular around presence in these tools of emotional regulation and attachment.
00:52:36
Speaker
um the the so I didn't know this actually until recently, but the style of parenting that Grace and I are mostly practicing is called attachment style and it's involves co-sleeping and spending a lot of time with your baby.
00:52:51
Speaker
and this, this is a controversial subject that we don't need to, cause there's a lot of, a lot of opinions on parenting and there's no right way. Yeah. There's no right way of course. But, um, it, to me, it just makes sense that you you, you, you sleep with your kid, you spend time with them, you know, it's, it's how we've done it for thousands of years. And, uh,
00:53:12
Speaker
But not only to concretely sleep with and spend time with, to be aware of mindfully, how is my nervous system regulated or organized as I'm spending time with or thinking about my child? Because that's the real legacy that I'm transmitting to their nervous system.
00:53:27
Speaker
It precisely. Yeah. And that like that is the ultimate gift. And I think that's something that, you know, just being able to give the gift of spacious presence and awareness and that having that spiritual foundation, you know, ah parenting is has been very hard and humbling and all the ways like I get why there's so much fear mongering around it now.
00:53:49
Speaker
At first I was like, oh, that's not going to be me. But what I will say is just having these these se tools of practices and meditation like really does transform it into something that I could see being like, whoa, this would be pretty intense and very difficult to like, what a gift to be able to practice in every moment, not giving my son my crap and my baggage and to just practice presence and that choice to
00:54:21
Speaker
be a little bit more compassionate to do something that would be a step in a direction towards healing and wholeness um for him and for myself and for the lineage. And so, yeah, that's, I really am so fortunate that I got my act together, so to speak, before having, having a good kid.
00:54:40
Speaker
Have you noticed the importance, I mean, I see this with so many parents that their story is I don't have time for practices. The need for micro practices that can be practiced with with will, you know, I need the will and the discipline to insert them into my ordinary moments whenever I get a so a space, like in the bathroom or or you know walking from the car to the house, to use those pauses for micro practices rather than i can only practice when I have a whole hour or not at all.
00:55:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's and that's something as well where going into this, I'd be like, well, I'm I'm still going to do my side. And, you know, I hear other parents complaining about how there's no time like that's not going to be me. And now having been in it is like, OK, wow, there's it is it is your it is a different relationship with free time like that is a ah major shift.
00:55:35
Speaker
um And so and yet, like for me, I still try to prioritize having dedicated time to sit and practice. But to your point, like orienting towards the whole experience parenting, whether you're changing a diaper or ah taking my son on walks in the stroller in the hills, it's all opportunities to practice because you have to you have to. bring And that's the very tantric thread of of parenting is that you use all of it, whether whether you're, you know,
00:56:03
Speaker
in a colicky conniption in the middle of the night and having to soothe them. um You know, I will try to chant mantras then and use the vibrational current to soothe both of our nervous system.
00:56:14
Speaker
But you really get orienting towards it's all, it's all practice. It's all grist for the mill um has been such, has made it so enjoyable. um And has made, I just got to pause you right there.
00:56:25
Speaker
I'm just so stopped and moved by you holding your baby and singing to your baby. Not just you, but any man doing that. yeah I'm so touched and moved because as I listen to it, I'm having the experience of imagining being held and sung to in that way and how healing and soothing that is and wanting that for everybody to have that experience.
00:56:50
Speaker
like That's a micro practice that anybody can do. yeah you know And it's organizing your thought. like I could be changing the colicky diaper. i don't know if I'm putting the things together in the right order there. Colicky diapers. but Or you know like making the warming the bottle or whatever. But like I have a choice about what I'm doing with my thoughts, how I'm directing the intentional mechanism.
00:57:15
Speaker
while I'm doing any of those activities. And I could turn it into anything with my imagination. I could turn it into like, as I wash the baby, I'm washing all babies. As I wash my baby, I'm washing the baby enlightened Buddhas anything that could do that begins to expand my state that I'm sharing now with the baby and the entire neighborhood.
00:57:38
Speaker
Yeah. you and I sing him some of the mantras you taught me. And I really try to vibrate those and, um, and I use it as like, so, I mean, and this is where like, it's, you could say a part of it is selfish, but it's also about service because I use it as like an opportunity to really come into the heart and get some meta and get like my own, like, oh, I need to come back into the heart. And I'm going to really like, I, you, you, I think you would be proud of me, Scott. Like I've thought of you on several occasions when I'm at you know at the, in these you rocking him.
00:58:12
Speaker
And like really just trying to sink into my heart and to just make it be as pure and give him as much love and to channel that love through the mantras as much as possible. And it does something for both of us. So check this out. Maybe you already do this. So you're imagining yourself there, which is easy to do because you've got that somatic memory of holding him. So you're there, you're holding you, you're rocking you.
00:58:33
Speaker
And then you have this something arises and you go. wait, I too am being held. it doesn't look like a physical body, but it could be a masculine or feminine or a gender neutral.
00:58:45
Speaker
But I'm being held by this loving presence and make it as real as possible holding me while I'm holding him. And then it's not my personality that's making the offering, but but the creative powers, the graceful powers of life itself.
00:59:02
Speaker
And I'm also teaching him that by practicing it without saying a word. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Thank you for that. Yeah. And that I do that that. That's something I try to tap into that transpersonal beyond the self sense of love, but that I love that, you know, being held by mother while I hold him, so to speak.
00:59:24
Speaker
That's a, that's truly beautiful. And I do find that there's something about the vibration of the mantra that seems to settle him more than anything else. And I think I saw, I saw a video about that.
00:59:36
Speaker
Um, And but then Grace and I have been practicing that and there's definitely something to that. Well, the empowered mantra has a transmission, no kidding, because these mantras weren't made up by somebody. They've been passed along in the ear whispered tradition from student teacher to student unbroken. So anybody in that entire lineage who's had realization of the fruit of the mantra those realizations are right there energetically. And the more I relax the body, open my heart and trust the faith, that's what's present.
01:00:07
Speaker
Like the outer letters and and words of a mantra are just the clothing that the true mantra is wearing. The true mantra is this self-aware, unconstructed, empty luminosity.
01:00:24
Speaker
And then there's the vagal tone. you know You study polyvagal theory, like making sound tones up the vagus nerve, the most important cranial nerve that has to do with resilience, mood, autoimmunity, and so on and so forth, and co-regulation through the sound. and The co-regulation through the sound, yeah, and the humming. Yeah, even just the humming, yeah, it's something that's really...
01:00:45
Speaker
Yeah, and so to you to like, but to your point, every moment can be a micro moment to prefer practice. And so for me, it's like the Dzogchen style sky gazing on the walks even like getting him into the car.
01:00:59
Speaker
um i have to be very mindful because I've blown out my back several times because there's you're using your body in all these ways that are just totally novel. And I also have back problems to begin with. And so have to be really mindful about just like where, where proprioceptively I am in space and I'm engaging the core yet relaxing, right? The points of the body.
01:01:20
Speaker
And so it, it really is a practice. And you know, I say this all because the alternative is to be distracted disgruntled frustrated the like i will you know i do so much work on addiction and screen addiction and i have courses on this but i've noticed that parenting it is really easy to get sucked into just like screen swiping and screen time because you have a lot of down time too where you're sort of just with the baby while they're playing or sleeping and they feel that Yeah, they and they they feel it and it is really easy. you know, I'm someone who like try to be really practiced in this and I made great progress, but I noticed that it's very easy the way our society is set up to to to slip into the alternative, which is not practiced in those micro hits.
01:02:06
Speaker
Um, which I love that term. I think I first heard that from Shinzen young, which is like, you take micro hits of awareness or meditation. And I teach that in one of my courses as with a nice recovery flare, which is like, instead of taking, you know, your drug or your drink, you know, take hits of awareness.
01:02:23
Speaker
And so I'm glad that you brought that in because it's so, so important. When I got that from Mahamudra from orgy and Rinpoche, who's, um, the the writer, that the being that he was, the Lama that he was, is deceased. I don't know if his new incarnation is around, but he's echoing this Mahamudra Dzogchen teaching, which is small recognitions, many small recognitions all day long, not recognizing is samsara. Samsara is the experience of pain and suffering through attaching my state, my happiness, my well-being to things that are transient and temporary.
01:02:57
Speaker
And so when I can recognize, and for some people that's not yet happening or not yet available, Well, can I recognize that everything is already enlightened? Everything is already awake. Everything is already whole.
01:03:12
Speaker
And I can somehow proprioceptively sense into this, just briefly touch it and let my nervous system be touched by it and then let it go and do it again and again. It dissolves the the problematic self-cherishing. It dissolves the grasping and the pushing away.
01:03:28
Speaker
And it opens so many resources cognitively and creatively and intuitively.
Developing Metacognition and Collaboration Skills
01:03:36
Speaker
And how would you, you know, when you because you mentioned some people won't get the recognition yet. So how would you describe that? Like for someone who's new to it? and like what do you mean you I wouldn't, I would be actually not trying to get them to become aware of awareness too soon.
01:03:51
Speaker
yeah and Unless they start to become available. What I would start to develop with them more and more is metacognition. growing their metacognitive skills, their metacognitive skills and their verbal and nonverbal collaborative skills. This is straight from Dan Brown for the healing of attachment wounding.
01:04:08
Speaker
Three things, three pillars are developing greater metacognition,
01:04:14
Speaker
developing greater and greater verbal and nonverbal collaborative skills, meaning if somebody is walking at me on the side of the sidewalk that I think should be mine, let me just move out of the way like a cork in water rather than becoming an obstacle and puffed up and righteous. Let me become a collaborative with the whole field.
01:04:30
Speaker
If the wind is blowing, I don't need to fight the wind. If it's raining, I don't need to fight the water. I can put up an umbrella or just dance in the rain or go inside. Verbal and nonverbal collaboration and then
01:04:44
Speaker
the ideal parent figure protocol, which is a meditative way of imagining and imagination doesn't mean fake. It's it's in a it's a going beyond linear thought to open to more of what's available.
01:04:58
Speaker
And having the feeling bringing the feeling into my nervous system, what would I be feeling if totally enlightened, totally loving, totally attuned parent figures were sitting with me right now? Maybe they're touching me. Maybe they're just smiling at me. Maybe they're just listening and get familiar with that.
01:05:16
Speaker
So those three things. So those three things are what I work on because when those three things grow in a person, there's a releasing in the attentional mechanism enough that then awareness can be pointed out.
01:05:33
Speaker
But before that, if I point out awareness, it's just another thought they're having. It's not actually something transformational or useful yet. It's just a thought they're having. It's a concept. It's an object. They've turned it awareness into an object.
01:05:46
Speaker
Awareness is the ultimate subject. It can't be objectified. It's vaster than the mind could ever imagine itself to be.
01:05:59
Speaker
love that. want to ask you a question. Yes. This is the question I ask every guest. And it starts with a quote, one of favorite quotes from Shunryo Suzuki Roshi, who opened the Zen Center of San Francisco in 60s.
01:06:13
Speaker
And you've heard me say this quote, so you maybe me know what I'm going to say. Death is certain, but time is not. So what is the most important thing, Alex?
01:06:29
Speaker
The most important thing... And I've been playing with this is like, i'm trying to imagine, okay, what if this were my last moment? Like, what would I do? How would I want to face death and enter that Bardo state?
01:06:44
Speaker
And the thing that has, I've come back to more over and over is to just relax and to let go. And for me, that I think is also what I, from, from my healing journey, what I've needed the most is to just let go and just relax and to be okay.
01:07:06
Speaker
and But that, but that quote but really brings up is like, yeah, what I've really tried to inquire and contemplate on like, what if it were my last moments, like, what would I want to do? Like, would you I want to replay throughout my, my entire life. Would I want to send love to ah people I care most about what I want to think about my son grace, my parents, my family.
01:07:28
Speaker
And what I've come back to is like, yes, all that is great, but really i would want it to go with as much peace and relaxation in my heart as possible.
01:07:40
Speaker
And so for me, that's the most important thing to just relax and to be, to be present for what's here and what's right in front of me.
01:07:51
Speaker
And what's here about man, I'd say thank you for that. Say it again. Here is just like, thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you. yeah Yeah. And you know, and for me these days, it's like the also relaxing into the most important thing, which is, you know, my son who's in front of me and that's just, it's right. He's right there, you know, it's right there appearing in the field and he's he's so just beaming and cute. And, it's been a very profound teacher to just, you know, just like, you can just be there attuned to him and that's it. And I don't not have to do anything accomplish anymore.
01:08:28
Speaker
And then I get even emotional thinking about and feeling into that because that was the thing that i was looking for for so long and in all the wrong places.
01:08:40
Speaker
And yet, you know as we know, there was never a hair out of place, but it all led to this moment. Yeah. Right. The paradox right there.
Parenting and Unconscious Patterns
01:08:50
Speaker
you know I've noticed this over many years of working with people who are parents.
01:08:56
Speaker
And it's just my anecdotal observation, but it feels really, really real that every age that one's child is unlocks the unconscious storehouse wider in the parent's life.
01:09:09
Speaker
It makes it more accessible that whatever was there or happened at that age, even if I don't have a story about it. So for you, 13 months would be pretty rational. But it is opening up that pre-rational space where so much data came into all of our nervous systems before we had words and thoughts and the ability to ask for things. So much was happening and we were aware and and and active.
01:09:34
Speaker
And those things are stored as impressions. But because we don't have words for them, we may not notice that they need to be picked up and held and worked with.
01:09:46
Speaker
I have noticed that it in in the way that you're describing, parenting really does point to what is going on in deep within you. And um what on on that front, I feel like the thing that I've noticed most is just like the something around really like trust and safety in the body.
01:10:09
Speaker
because there's something really primal and pure just about having a baby who's just totally okay being naked. And I take baths with him where he's just sitting in my lap and you know, there's something just very, back to the basic instinct that this is, I can, I can notice it's doing some work on me and that, on that domain and creating a trust in life and in my body. Um, and then also to to the pre-rational,
01:10:36
Speaker
I think the thing that's really come online for me in the last 13 months has been just this non-conceptual play and awareness. And because when you're really the way to attune with a, a,
01:10:49
Speaker
child this young is that you're you're not doing anything conceptually or with thought, but you're just, you're just feeling and making faces and giggling and sort of, you know, just a tuning in that way. And so that that's also been something that I feel has been deeply healing and just soul nourishing for me.
01:11:09
Speaker
This feels like a natural transition moment where we can put a bookmark in for today. Is there anything Let's just imagine everything you did, wrote, recorded, was erased.
01:11:23
Speaker
When you find out it's going to be your last hour, what would you want to leave us with in this world?
01:11:38
Speaker
That's a really good question. and trying to actually pretend it's real. So what the thing that comes up is that healing is possible.
01:11:53
Speaker
And I say that because I was someone who was in such a pained and depressed unwell place that, uh, for a long, long time, i didn't know it was possible to be any other way.
01:12:12
Speaker
And so I think the thing that I would want to offer people is that it is radically within your reach to change your life in this very moment in a way that you could not even imagine.
01:12:27
Speaker
And
01:12:30
Speaker
That feels like the probably the most in thing important thing that I want to offer right now is just that so much more is possible in the realm of human flourishing and well-being and happiness. And if you earnestly follow whatever little compulsive thread that you might be dealing with or addiction and you really follow that thread all the way to the bottom of that inquiry, you'll find that.
01:12:57
Speaker
And that's my hope and that's my wish for for what others can experience too. It's like I feel very fortunate to be alive and I feel even more fortunate to have found the sort of presence and awareness that you were just describing. And my hope is that more and more people who are open to that get to experience it.
01:13:19
Speaker
Thank you so much for everything you've done and been through, including sacrifices you've made that no one will ever know about, to be able to show up as a loving dad, a loving partner, a friend, and for sure, the all the healing that's able to be offered to to the willing through you.
01:13:38
Speaker
And to be here today with me sharing this space, it's been very uplifting, um nourishing, regulating. So with all of
Conclusion: Gratitude and Healing Potential
01:13:49
Speaker
my heart, thank you for being here.
01:13:52
Speaker
Thank you so much, Scott. This also was a true joy for me. And so I'm feeling I'm going to really be taking some of that enlightened, attuned, present parent with me. like So thank you for that like that's that. I'm feeling that in my body and I'm going to carry that with me today.
01:14:09
Speaker
love that. So everybody, we're going to do, if you're new, we take some silence. so If you remember the entry into the episode where I'm inviting you to inhale deeply and exhale slowly like you're setting down a heavy burden, soften your hands and feet.
01:14:22
Speaker
We'll be together in silence as we end this, just to notice what's here, what's present, what's shifted in you as you've been listening to this episode. And we'll see you in the next episode. You can catch up with Alex through the show notes, read his sub stack, listen to his videos and so much more.
01:14:44
Speaker
So let's drop into the silence together.
01:15:05
Speaker
Loving the episode? Click to follow, like, and share it as widely as possible. Want to go deeper with the choice to grow? Explore the show notes. You'll find links there for going deeper with our guests, as well as how to work with me in the work of waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up.
01:15:26
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Can't wait to join you in the next episode.