Latest / The soulnotskin Podcast with Jen SluMac / Sincerely, America - Benjamin Lee

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Sincerely, America - Benjamin Lee · The soulnotskin Podcast with Jen SluMac

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: And as a therapeutic exercise, I wrote a letter to myself from the American government apologizing to me for all of those missteps.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_03: And it was weird because I knew what I was doing from a conscious perspective, and I didn't expect it to have any impact.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: But after reading those words, it really like even though I knew I wrote them, it still had that effect on me.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: I just needed to hear the words.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't, it didn't matter who they came from.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Soul Knot Skin Podcast, a virtual living room, a safe, welcoming place to land where you can look and share and share stories straight from the heart.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Jen Splumack, or as my students like to call me, Ms.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Jen.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about the real human experience, the hard stuff, the wonderful stuff, and the messy everyday growth that shapes who we become.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Real stories, real people, real insight.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: Becoming who we are.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Settle in, and let's dive into today's episode.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: I am here with the gentleman, Benjamin Lee.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: And Benjamin wrote a book.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's a book that I'd like to talk about today, not just for its contents, but I'm curious as to its origin and the motivation behind it, what inspired it.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that when you hear a little bit about it, you will be too.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd like to invite you, Benjamin, first if you would introduce yourself to the audience.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: And could you tell us what the book is and what inspired it?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I am Benjamin John Lee.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh these these days, I I don't know, I'm a little bit of everything.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: I like to write.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a professional life coach.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a retired military bomb squad technician.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_03: I used to be in the trades.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: I was a carpenter and electrician for a while.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so I'm a, I guess you could call me a jack of all trades.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but the book that I wrote is called Sincerely America.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_03: And it is a collection of letters written through the voice of America, taking accountability for all of our nation's missteps throughout the decades, and then just apologizing to the groups of people who still carry the pain of those decisions being made.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I have to tell you, I've read I've read three-quarters of it, uh, what you sent to me, and I intend to read the rest of it.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: But what's really powerful about what you've done here, in my opinion, is sure, you're speaking to distinct groups of individuals, healthcare workers, teachers, educators, um, victims of the welfare state, folks who uh, you know, in addiction, the LGBT community, uh, women, men.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: You've you've spoken to all of these distinct groups of people.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: What's so profound to me is that that is exactly you've you've completely pinpointed the turbulence among us because everyone is carrying their own stuff, and none of us can see each other's because we live in a state of, yeah, but what about me?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I get it, it's human nature, but to read these one by one and truly identify the characteristics of each of us, or many of us, it begins to do what I'm trying to do with Soul Not Skin.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: It begins to try to help us see ourselves in each other's stories and start to um bring humanity to the ideas that we dismiss, right?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: What motivated you to write this this book?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Quite a few things, really.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: I I will I was just having a conversation with one of my co-workers as we were eating lunch, and she had never she didn't know that I had published a book and we were talking about it.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_03: And she thinks or she brought up that an issue in our society is that people don't care.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: And I challenge that a little bit because I I genuinely don't think that most people are operating from a place of malice.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: I I I think it's just a place of, as you said, of everybody is walking around with this massive wound, and everybody thinks that nobody cares about them.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's true and when our nervous systems are in that state of fight or flight, like we're not thinking about integrating ourselves into the to a collective.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_03: We're thinking very individualistically.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_03: My later intention with this book was exactly what you said, which was I really hope that when somebody reads these letters and they find one that resonates with them, that they feel seen.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then after feeling seen, when they go through and read letters that don't have to do with them, maybe they can apply that same level of empathy towards the other groups.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_03: And uh the book itself came about because uh, as I said, I'm a retired military guy, and I did a few tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and after the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, I had a lot of feelings that were coming up.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: I wasn't quite sure what they were at the time.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: In hindsight, I came to realize that that was the moment in which the illusion broke for me because I genuinely did really believe in what I was doing.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: And I I I still do, like I'm still proud of what I did.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: But that facade that was there for so many years about the people in charge caring and just I just saw in that moment I saw humanity for what it was.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: And as a therapeutic exercise, I wrote a letter to myself from the American government apologizing to me for for all of those missteps.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: And it was weird because I knew what I was doing from a conscious perspective, and I didn't expect it to have any impact.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: But after reading those words, it really like even though I knew I wrote them, it still had that effect on me.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: I just needed to hear the words.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't, it didn't matter who they came from.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, sir.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_03: And then afterwards I got just this overwhelming calling to be like, hey, if you did this for yourself, what's stopping you from doing this for other groups of people?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: And at that time, I was going back to school and I was in a uh post-Civil War Reconstruction American history class.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just like every day that we were in class, it was just this new group of people and new bad policy and all these things that were going on.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, I'm just gonna start creating a list of people who have a bone to pick with the government past and present, and just start not, and my book isn't political at all.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't have anything about policy, it doesn't have anything about left or right, or it's just I want to acknowledge the pain that people are feeling because of the situation that they are in, and just telling them, hey, like I see you, and I'm sorry that you're dealing with what you're dealing with.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Benjamin, that uh we are kindred spirits, brother.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: I swear to you.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you said so many important things there.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: If I can remember them, I I looked for a pen, I wanted to make notes, and I didn't grab one.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to go off screen because I didn't want to look like I wasn't listening.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I might do that in a minute.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: But let me see if I can't attack some of the things that uh you said.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: The first you said, um, again, you articulated something beautifully, and I'm gonna botch it, so please correct me.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: You said something about when you were in Afghanistan and there was that effort to uh to get out that was kind of messed up.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um the crack, the facade, right?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: What did you say?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: It was broken.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: The uh I'm I actually I retired back in 2014.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: So this was me in the civilian world seeing this play out on the news.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: There was something about the unaccountability from the government and the passing of the buck and just the decisions that were being made, that the illusion broke, that the facade that existed over our polit our political system that was like, hey, we have your best interest in mind.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: I think that was the moment for me that like that that shattered.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_03: And then I felt but I felt betrayed because I I joined when I was 17.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_03: I I sacrificed everything.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: My innocence, my naivety, my like that curious child in me.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: I had to kill him in order to do the job that I had to do.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I felt very betrayed when all of that happened.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for elaborating.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: I I really do think that that is the crux of the challenge, right?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um when the facade is broken.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: Now, let me just be clear.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: I love our country.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: I love our country.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be anywhere else.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: I it is an imperfect nation, but it is uh incredible in terms of opportunity and uh vision.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I love my country.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Saying the things that we're gonna discuss in this show does not change that, right?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: One what I was gonna say about the facade is when the facade is broken, the uh you can become anything that you want to be in this country if you work hard enough.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: The um, you know just how about this one?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: This is a personal experience.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: One of the challenges of growing up uh gay in a com in a my father's minister, um retired minister, the idea that uh we are all loved unconditionally was not demonstrated to me.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_02: You can be anything that you want to be if you work hard enough.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: There are people working so hard to put food on the table, to send their kids to school, to buy gas for work in the morning, and no matter how hard they work, they can't get ahead.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: So no matter what your circumstance, when you're in a place where you see the cracks, suddenly you see all of it, and you see human nature at work.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: And in my experience, I've developed, or I think I was born with, this painful compassion for humanity, and what happens is if you haven't been put in a situation that has profoundly shaken your foundation about what is true and what is not, what you're told and what you've experienced, unless that has happened to you at a certain level, you can't see it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: And this is what pains me because those of us who do are dismissed as whiners, are dismissed as overly emotional, are dismissed at do you understand?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: Do you ever get that from anyone with this book or with your talking about some of these things?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, first let me say that I echo your sentiment about this not being about me disliking my nation.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I our nation is is the grand experiment for a reason, and we're just sorting things out.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I am overly op I am so optimistic that we are going to figure it out, and that's what keeps me moving forward.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: There's a great quote by James Baldwin, who said, I love America more than any other country in the world, and for this exact reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: I criticize because I care.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, yes, sir.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: But yes, in fact, when when we spoke through email and you said that this I need to get the book out on social media, I had actually at one point, right after I had published it, started creating a YouTube series where I would individually read uh each of the letters through my own voice.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_03: And they it had more of an impact that way, because I do have I have a good radio voice, so reading those letters, thank you.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: But all of the comments, and this was a reason that I sort of abandoned it, was I all of the comments that I got were the exact comments you're talking about.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: But oh, well, people just people need to suck it up, people need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, or it like with my letter to the freedmen and their descendants, it's oh well, they you know, they never experienced slavery, so what like what what do they have to complain about?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it's I this has been an exercise for me in showing compassion towards people who just don't understand these sorts of things.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: They don't like they don't they don't understand how political and sociological effect can ripple through generations, but not even that how trauma can be epigenetically inherited and passed down and for them as well.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, for the very critics of it as well.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_03: That is what I have come to realize is causing that activation inside of them because one thing I never understood was I get that you're not on the team, but I don't understand why you're actively fighting against it.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: And then I had to realize that that is activating a part of their own history and their own trauma that that I have to be compassionate to both sides.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason that I ended up here is I'm actually quite the opposite of you.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_03: When you said you were born with this innate, you know, love for humanity, I was born blind.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_03: I grew up in a family who using racial slurs was okay.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: I was the person who thought that gay marriage was wrong and that people were going to go to hell.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: I was the person who said, like, oh, well, they didn't experience slavery, so what does it matter?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like having been that person, and like my you said that typically it takes a catalyzing event to change somebody's perspective.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: Mine was war.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: When you're in the middle of a firefight and you look to your left and you look to your right, and there is people from all different walks of life, but you're on the same team and you're in this shit together, there's something like it shatters that separation that you feel between things.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so, like, I'm infinitely grateful for those because throughout the course of my adult life, like I've just constantly challenged all of these preconceived beliefs that I had about me, about everybody else around me.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: And so, like this at one point I actually had the aspiration to get into politics.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: And this book, in part, was actually a research project for me because I was like, if if I'm going to represent the nation, then I need to understand the emotional world of all of my colleagues.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's for you.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: But I I've come to realize that I don't think I'm cut out for that world.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: But like it was a really it was a really good educational experience for me.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: But like I just think it's funny how two people can end up in the same place coming from completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's uh, you know, that's how the universe works.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I say the universe uh to respect whatever everybody believes, because I also think that we find our own way to faith, whatever that looks like.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: But that's how it works, I think, is if we are open to learning, if we're open to discomfort, if we're open to looking at what triggers us.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, some of us are forced to.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: I was forced to through my identity, I was forced to through divorce, I was forced to through alcoholism.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was I was brought to my knees multiple times in my life for different reasons.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: For being the white girl in a black community that I adored but identified with the wrong side of every movie we watched in school.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: There was there's things that each of us carries.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: And if we face them in order to save our lives or in or in order to reconcile that that cognitive dissonance that lives within us, if we're if we're willing to face the discomfort and do some research and question my preconceived understandings and get in relationship with the things that I feel like I understand, you know, it changes when you know somebody.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: It changes when you know somebody because we're relational creatures.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: And if uh, for instance, you know, I became the first gay people that a lot of people had met, and then they felt like they could say, Well, I'm not homophobic because I have a friend who's gay, which is great, it's progress, but how are you?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna go down that road.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: We can get so deep into that.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm probably gonna edit that piece anyway.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um the important piece here is that we're capable of growing, we're capable of seeing each other and things differently.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um one of my favorite quotes is by Mother Teresa, she said, if there is no peace, it's because we've forgotten that we belong to each other.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I just love that.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um would you mind if I read one of your letters, maybe one that um we could more universally uh all of us appreciate?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'll leave the more triggering ones for folks to get your book and read in the privacy of their own uh space so that they can self-reflect.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: I would like to read the one to healthcare workers.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good one.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: So again, this is uh Benjamin John Lee.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and he's written a book called Sincerely America, and he's written to multiple groups of people.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: This one is to healthcare workers.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: It says, From the earliest days of this nation, I have relied upon you to be the steady hands in moments of crisis.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: You were the midwives who brought new life into the world, the battlefield medics who bound wounds in fields while still wet with blood, and the community doctors and nurses who tended to the sick when medicine was scarce and danger close.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Through war and plague, poverty and prosperity, you stood as the quiet backbone of survival.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: And yet, for all that I asked of you, I built a system that failed to honor your history.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: I allowed healing to become commodified, turning care into a privilege rather than a right.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: I placed upon you the burden of fighting not only illness but the weight of insurance forms, billing codes, and endless regulations.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: I praised you in times of visible crisis and left you depleted when the spotlight faded.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: I permitted a culture where you were celebrated as heroes while simultaneously being driven into exhaustion, your compassion drained by impossible hours, and your livelihoods dictated by profit instead of humanity.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: I can imagine the ways this must weigh upon your spirit.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: To devote years of training only to be measured in quotes and metrics is to feel unseen.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Quotas, excuse me, quotas and metrics is to feel unseen.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: To run from bed to bed without rest and see lives slip away despite your best efforts is to carry a grief too heavy for one person.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: To work through nights of chaos with no thanks at all is to feel invisible in the very labor that sustains a nation.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_02: For those who carried us through the pandemic, who walked into overflowing wards and faced death daily, the trauma remains carved into your very being.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: How isolating it must feel to hold both the reverence of hero and the reality of being left unsupported, burned out, and unheard.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: You have every right to feel exhausted, to feel betrayed, to feel that I asked too much and gave too little.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: You have every right to question why a country that depends so deeply upon you allows you to suffer in silence.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I acknowledge that betrayal.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: I see the toll it has taken not only on your health, but on your families, your hope, and your sense of worth.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: This letter is not meant to place more weight upon your shoulders, but To lift some of it away.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: It is a recognition of the truth you already know that your labor has carried me through my darkest hours and that I must do more to honor that.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: It is a vow to build a system that matches the nobility of your work so that your calling to heal others will not wound you in return.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: For your steadfast service, your compassion, and the unrelenting care you have given me and my people, I owe you more than words.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: I owe you a system that reflects the dignity of your labor and the sanctity of your calling.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: With the deepest respect for your sacrifice and the sincerest hope that I may learn to care for you as you have always cared for me.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sincerely, America.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, let's just let that sit for a second.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is profound work that you have done in facing yourself, facing your upbringing, facing your own pain, doing the research, and then saying it out loud.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: I celebrate you.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: I celebrate you, Benjamin.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: Truly.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: I um my mother just passed away in February, and I spent gratefully on and off the last two years going and visiting and being with her through chemo and radiation.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: But primarily I was able to be with her for the last month and a half of her life, with my stepfather and family coming to visit and to help.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the story I want to tell based on your letter.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: My mom had one woman who she adored that cared for her.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: She had several, everyone that she was grateful to, but one CNA that really had her feeling safe, that really made her feel seen, cared for, loved, not judged, as she got thinner, as she lost her hair, all of the things that had made her feel beautiful as a woman, this person came and honored her and gave her dignity and cared for her with respect.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: And as I got to know that individual, I took her out to dinner to thank her, and we got to talking.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And the trauma.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: She got into the work because her mother died and no one was there to help her.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: She couldn't afford help.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: So she learned as a daughter to be her mother's caretaker with no support.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: And her mother died eventually, as we all do.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: But she got into the work for that reason.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: And she said she can't count over the seven years, I think, the amount of family members that nobody comes to visit that are in these, I don't know what you call them.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: They're past retirement homes, but where folks are in hospice and uh what do you call that?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: Nursing homes?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: The amount of people that she had to be family to and CNA to and therapist to and mother to and she's exhausted emotionally, spiritually, and she keeps showing up because she loves.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just put a hard stop there because she loves.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what we would do without our healthcare workers.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: They are not driven, she is not making enough money to be enduring what she was doing.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: But my mom loved her and she needs that love.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: And my mom needed her love, and they didn't look anything like each other.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: And they probably never would have met not in this environment or situation.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think about this letter that you wrote?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Who do you see it falling to and landing on them the way that your letter to yourself landed on you?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: I think anybody who puts a stethoscope around their neck, who puts on a pair of scrubs, who just not even nurses or doctors or CNAs or PAs or NPs, just anybody who cares for somebody else.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_03: And when when I go into some of these letters, my I have a very analytical brain, and I can't help but look at things from a policy perspective, and the the empathetic side is great.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: And telling people that you appreciate them is great.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not saying that's not important, but these people do what they do willingly and will continue to do so willingly.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_03: The part that really riles me up is that we still continuously have these same debates about the way that our system is, with everybody knowing and seeing how broken it is.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: And we can't get out of our own way to provide a level of care, a standard level of care to people in this nation.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: That there's people rotting away in nursing homes who are for-profit organizations who give pennies to the people that they're caring for and then just soak up all the money to for corporate profits.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: And the level of collective cognitive dissonance, or maybe even just purposeful blindness that goes on, and then the fact that people still latch on to these petty arguments about oh, well, somehow like paying for insurance is somehow the American thing to do.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, can we please get out of our own frickin' way for a moment and understand that all of this rhetoric that has existed for the past few decades is doing nothing but serving corporate profits and propping up a two-party political system that is on the verge of collapse?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_03: And that if we could just find the humanity between one another, that we maybe we could start making some better, more informed decisions.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: So from my perspective, like, and again, that's what like man, even talking about this stuff gets riled up because I see when I see somebody doing a job that I know I can do better than them, it's just me to be like, get out of the way, let me do this, because I can't believe that we're still doing things the way that we're doing things.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: And unfortunately, our for-profit healthcare system is just one of those things that has gotten so bloated out of proportion that I I legitimately don't even know how or where that we would begin to fix that, other than seeing the person across from us and going, they are no matter who they are, where they're from, what they contribute, they are worthy and they deserve a standard level of basic care.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_03: Not because they're a citizen, not because this just you are a human being and therefore I care about you getting the care that you need.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Plain, that's simple.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: What do you say to the folks who can't see this, who who continue to?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't wanna I don't wanna point fingers at anybody in any of my episodes, so I'm gonna not go there.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure that that would be received the way that I intended.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that you're right though, when you said um sometimes purposeful blindness, I think you said.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: I think the reality of the human animal is that we run away from pain and we run toward pleasure.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's every one of us.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Strip us down of our skin and our privilege and our poverty and our we all are doing that.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: And when you get in the way of that journey away from pain or to happiness or peace, then I have to defend myself, and I may reach for the ballot box, I may reach for a gun, I may reach for drugs and alcohol, I may reach for myriad things that are available or accessible to me in the environment that I live in because we are all on a journey to be out of pain and to be full of pleasure, period, that's the humanity that you speak of.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Can we get real about what it is that we all are and understand how many delusions have been put in the way to distract us from each other?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: But here's to be fair, I I I wrote this script of a video that I'm gonna record and put on my my website uh after I read your letters.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: I had been working on something, and your letters made me tweak what it says.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things that I observe in the video is um we have to understand that every single one of us is on a journey and at a different place of understanding, right, of emotional literacy, of capacity to to give some of ourselves or to take take on too much.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: And if I have the opportunity to ignore the reality of the pain that is in the world, because my world does not touch it, I will.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it also makes us responsible to reflect, right?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: It makes us responsible to reflect.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things I hope we can do by the end of this uh conversation, Benjamin, is uh I want to provide an idea or two about because not everybody's gonna go into the prisons and do trauma healing circles like I do.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: Not everybody's built for that.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: Not everybody's gonna go and work with the population of unhoused folks and addicts on the street because they're not built for that.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: But you can put a check in an envelope and send it to a different place.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: You can do some research about the truth behind something that you have a fixed idea about and consider how you might participate in adjusting that so that it creates a more humane outcome.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: What do you do outside of writing this book in terms of carrying this message?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Anything besides being the man that you are?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, in my opinion, that's all anybody can do.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: That all external change comes from within.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: So if I want to see the world change, then I need to change those parts of myself first.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that's just that because we are social creatures and because we operate, and people don't like to think we operate as a collective, but we do.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_03: We're we're very, very similar to a colony of ants or bacteria or anything else.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: We work in tandem with one.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: And the that's what good leadership boils down to is not, hey, I'm going to control you out of fear, I'm going to maneuver, manipulate you into doing this thing.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's I'm going to forge these pathways in myself, and you're going to follow me because you are going to recognize the value in me living a virtuous life.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: Come on.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_03: The problem with that is that is a very, very hard road to walk.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: It takes a lot of self-accountability, it takes a lot of radical honesty, but more than that, what you just touched on is it takes willingly choosing suffering.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's the only way to get to growth is through suffering.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's like what when you know I'm I'm also a personal trainer, and when you're trying to get muscle growth, you you can't just wish your way into doing it.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: You gotta go tear some muscle up if you want to build muscle.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_03: And the emotional muscles are the same exact way because we need to operate in a state of emotional resistance in order to grow into the people that we want to grow into.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_03: But as you said, most and I want to make the distinction because when I say mo like people, I think that there are two very distinct parts of human nature, and that is we have a physical existence that is mated with this spiritual existence, and we need to find a way to integrate those two realities towards each other.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: I agree a hundred percent.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: I agree a hundred percent.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: It is equally as important to acknowledge and to thank the human side of our nature because our ego is what helps us show up in the world.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's the reason that we build monuments and skyscrapers and research new technology.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: But we also need to give just as much love and and acknowledge the fact that we're spiritual creatures, that we are here in this together, and that if we're going to get to where we want to go, then we need to start lifting each other up instead of pushing each other down.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't have to look like, and when people hear that, they think, oh, well, people are going to take something from me.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, no, no, no, no.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: You don't, nothing has to be taken.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like, there's so many things that I do that are just free that establishes the way that I want to show up in the world.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_03: So if I'm walking down King Street here in Charleston and I see uh a homeless person on the side of the street.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: Instead of ignoring the fact they exist, just look them in the eyes, ask them their name, and tell them that you're sorry for their situation.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like they won't care that you didn't give them any money.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_03: You're acknowledging that they are still a human being and allowing them to feel like a part of their of the community.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: Giving somebody your attention is the most valuable thing that you could ever do.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: Not I'm paying attention to you because I think I'm gonna get something from you or I'm networking or this.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's hey, like I want to know what's going on in your world, and and I'm here just to listen to what you have to say.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like those things are free, and those create that bond of kinship that our society is missing.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: And that's all we have to do to help fix this, is just let's let's build these communities again.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_03: Let's reach across the aisle, let's put our own egos aside for a minute and just be like, hey, how can we move forward together?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: And that doesn't have to look like me losing anything or me taking anything from you.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't mean that you have to save the world.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: It means that you touch what you touch in your life in a different way.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're you're literally almost uh speaking my full script that for the for the uh video I'm gonna record for my website.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, down to um down to the person on the street, you know?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't cost anything to have an open heart and to acknowledge people.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's not true.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: It costs a lot, like you said.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, something you have to self-reflect and you have to you have to be willing to be in discomfort for an undetermined amount of time, right?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: Because we have to it's that cognitive dissonance because when you stop and acknowledge what's going on in front of you, you have to take accountability for your role in propagating the way the things are.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a step that most people aren't willing to take.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: But it's absolutely what I tell people is taking taking accountability for things is one of the most like fulfilling things that you can ever do when you when you put that shame away and that guilt away, and you're just like, hey, here's how things are, and I'm going to be honest about the way things are.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_03: That way I can move forward in a more mindful direction.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of the most liberating feelings in the world.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: And and it's healing to yourself.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: But he and here's the thing, right?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: It costs vulnerability costs different people different things.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I can be vulnerable with you, and I'm living in a world uh that is around me where if I fall, if I stumble, I've got enough uh friend, family, um resource that I won't be on the street, or I won't uh have to wonder where my next meal is coming from.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: People will take care of me, you know?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I would imagine that that's gonna happen in just about any world that you exist in.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think we see that when tragedy hits, right?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: The way that Americans just come together, like you said, on the battlefield, suddenly you're looking around and we're all there and we're all focused on the one thing.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: We're all brought together by this thing that we're all experiencing, right?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: I forgot where I was going, Benjamin.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: I shouldn't have introduced myself or into uh interrupted myself.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what was I saying?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember?
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Damn it.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so let's go here.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me do this.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you, where would you like to go with this conversation?
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I'd like to ask a quick question of you, and that is what was your original intention behind creating the souls not skinny?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: Like what led, although I guess if your audience is overly aware of that story, then we can talk about that offline.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: But I I would love to know just because I love the concept of it, the the soul not skinny.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_03: So just where does that come from?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I have to tell you, uh, the real story is a bit disappointing.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but uh what it's become is uh what I really like.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think that it had to be a silly story to bring it into bring it to life.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and I'm so grateful that it did because it encompasses so much and probably what you are appreciating about it, right?
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: That we see the soul and not the skin, so to speak.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to know where it came from, I will tell you.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: And like I said, it's a little disappointing, but I was at my house in Chicago, and it's beautiful brownstone, and I was in front of my computer, and I was doing some web design.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was a stand-up comic back then, and I was trying to promote myself, and and I needed an email address to start this account or something like that.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, okay, what's a really unique address?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what to do.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm looking around the room and I'm trying to find, you know, something goofy to use, and I was listening to music, and I was noticing what an eclectic group, you know, what an eclectic group of folks that I listened to.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it went from like uh Al Green to Justin Timberlake to Tracy Chapman to um uh Fleetwood Mac.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it was just kind of, and I thought, you know, I think what I like about music is when it has soul and it doesn't matter who's singing it.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then I thought, Soul Knot Skin, that's catchy.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where it comes from.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's where it started.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that was about 20 years before I wrote my book that is about my journey.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: Called Soul Knot Skin, becoming the me I was meant to be.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it's and that book has become sort of the platform for the rest of the work that I find myself now doing.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I call the podcasts and I call my company and all of these things.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it's all about um, it's become all about finding the soul of America because of the harm experienced by the skin, by the flesh, by the human.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um all things being equal, we're the same.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I I think I think the simplest and mundane stories often make the best ones.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, there it is.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_03: It wasn't this profound thing.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_03: It was just like, oh, I was listening to some music and realized I like soulful music.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, okay, that's cool.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: Simple.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't told many people that story, so the jig is up.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now people know.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds good.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's out there.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um in your emails, you said that you would like to maybe dissect a little bit the parallel between returning home from incarceration and returning home from war.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: Is that something that you still wanted to touch on?
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you bringing that up.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: I think I uh lost track of it with reading your things this morning.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_02: I came in right off of reading these letters.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so thank you for bringing that up.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: I absolutely would like to.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it goes to the heart of what we're talking about, right?
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um I I I firmly believe that love builds connection and not love like cuddle with me, but love as a force, and that um, you know, trauma or anger or violence can create the disconnection.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: When I read that you are a veteran, and I believe you said that that wasn't being in the war wasn't the problem.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_02: It was after you came home that the trouble started.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I have worked with uh folks who live on the inside of prisons and jails, and I have seen that while there uh I've probably met versions of these men in my classroom that their families have never seen.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: But when they go back to their communities and they go back to their families having to uh operate in the world without anybody understanding what they've been through, without anybody understanding what they had to do to survive in that era in that space, that's when the trouble began.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I just did an episode with a woman about PICS post-incarceration syndrome, which is just a series of symptoms and behaviors that have manifested out of being institutionalized and having all your choices made for you and being on, you know, hyper-vigilant at all times.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was really interested in hearing um what you meant when you said that the trouble began at home.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: If you could sort of unravel that for us, unpack that for us.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think I think that there are a lot of parallels there.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: And the reason actually might surprise, and I could be completely wrong on this, but from my own perspective, there is, and I I I've never been incarcerated, so I can't speak to their experience, but I can imagine that there are similarities where you're told what you have to do, you're told where to go, you don't have a ton of freedom, you're given what it is that you're going to eat.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_03: Like in the military, it's like you have your mission, and your mission is to like like for me, go defuse the bombs.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_03: We tell you you need to defuse and stay alive.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like that was it.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's amazing, by the way.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_03: The thing that people don't realize is that regular civilian life is 4,000 times more stressful than being in a war zone.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_03: Because and being there myself, the happiest I have ever been in my life was laying on a cot underneath my truck, staring at the stars in an open desert in Afghanistan.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_03: Just because you it there's something primal about war.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's it's almost like you're doing what humans were like that's all we did for thousands of years was just survive.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_03: It isn't up until recently where we have modern society where it's like, oh, you need to now worry about making your car payment on time and paying the internet bill and worrying about taxes and just all of these micro stressors that just build and build and build and build.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_03: And there's something about witnessing the contrast between those two states of being.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's like when you're in a war zone, to be fair, when you're at war, at least the wars we fight these days, like you're only in war or in danger, maybe like 0.01% of the time.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: The rest of the time is actually very, very boring.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like you throw rocks at monster cans and try to knock them over, and you make fun of one another, and you sit around a fire and just BS, and it's like there's something primal about that.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_03: It's like there's a book written called Tribe, and it's about that.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_03: It sounds almost similar to that post-incarceration syndrome where it's like when you experience the the tribal nature of how easy life is when you're in a group of people who have shared similar goals, and it's like really all we're doing is we're feeding each other, keeping each other alive, and making sure the emotional and physical well-being of one another.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's like that that's literally it.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then you come home, and now it's like, okay, now I gotta we gotta decide what we're making for dinner, we gotta get the kids to ballet, we got like all of these things, and it paints this contrast on how like unnecessary modern life really is.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, sir.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_03: And like, yeah, there's a lot of niceties about modern life, but there's also like a lot of what I was talking about before about willingly choosing suffering.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_03: There's something about going through hard things that just makes you feel really good.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: And there's just something about the way that modern society sort of lulls you into this state of complacency.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_03: That the there just the contrast between those two states of being, I think, is what really mentally screws with a lot of people when they get out of those situations.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_03: So I can imagine that even though being incarcerated is is dangerous and you don't have freedom and all like that there's also a tribal nature that goes on behind bars because that's who you have to become to survive.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_03: And then when you're back out in the regular world, it's like I don't I I still don't know how to do any of this shit.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I apologize for swearing.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's true.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_03: And also there's something here that feels very incongruent to me, but I can't put my finger on it, so that it just ends up being this weird nervous system state of like, I know something's wrong, but I don't know what's wrong.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then obviously, because we try to escape discomfort, as you said, we reach for whatever's available to us booze, drugs, sex, uh, social media, like whatever it is we use to numb ourselves, when we find ourselves in those states, like we just and that's where most of our addiction comes from, is through simple disconnection.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, sir.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, um, again, you said so many things, and uh, I just really appreciate that.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think there is something very uh, you know, when you when you speak about tribal, I think I I think that's just that's what we're talking about, right?
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like getting getting through the delusion of the of the idea, the delusion that we're all so different, the delusion that we're uh monsters, you know what I mean?
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and settling into community that has a similar purpose.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that's what gangs are.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: People who uh desire community and belonging find it where they are, whether it be in war, whether it be on the street, whether it be in jail, whether it be at church, whether it be, you know, we have a natural tendency to want to belong and to connect.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: And absolutely, I have to agree with you.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: I love my stuff.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: I do.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: I love my stuff.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: I love that I have a computer here that I can talk to you on, that we can put the story out in the world, that I can, you know, change into a clean shirt.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_02: If, you know, I I love that.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to give it up.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't have to, but I will tell you that God forbid I lost it all.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: I have been forced to do enough work to stay alive from alcoholism, to survive my own suicide attempts for self-loathing out of being gay and and and not welcome in the church.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: I have had I've been forced to do enough that if I lost everything that I have, Benjamin, I would be okay.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the sitting around the fire.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's the laying in the bed of your truck staring at the stars.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, my brothers and I were sort of talking about some things the other day, and you know, one brother said, you know, I'm worried that one day we're gonna have uh water wars instead of oil wars, and and I'm scared of AI and and what it's becoming, and you can't tell what's real and what's not real anymore.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and I said, you know, but what about the human condition?
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: We have plenty of water right now and we don't share it.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: We see things uh as they are, like you mentioned earlier, poverty, but we don't think it's real, we think it's their fault.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's so many reasons why going back.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: I told I told them, I said, maybe we are devolving and maybe we will devolve to where we began, and we'll all be sitting around a fire with intergenerational uh conversations and uh the neighbor coming by and eating some of the whatever we killed today, because like you said, we used to live just to survive.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't have to have jobs because our job was to bring home food, right?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: Or to do whatever.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we devolve into that, but the difference is now we know what we have.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_01: I actually don't think so.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: Weirdly.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think I believe that our hedonism, even though it is what is causing so much friction right now, is going to be the same thing that makes us turn the shit around before it's too late.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_03: Because while everybody says, like, oh, just let it burn to the ground, and this it's like you're not you like your life too much.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: So once the level of societal cognitive dissonance and we're starting to see it, but but especially at the geopolitical level, we're starting to see people who once held very firmly to beliefs, hook, line, and sinker, are now going, like, hey, this just doesn't make sense to me anymore.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that that actually, and because I've seen this same growth process in myself as a recovered addict and just uh in general degenerate human being, I'm seeing this I'm seeing the same because growth isn't linear, it comes in cycles.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm seeing the same exact thing happen at a societal level, and that gives me a lot of hope because I'm seeing society repeat the same cycles now much faster and faster than we used to, and that is the point in which you're about to hit rock bottom and then to go the other way.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, sir.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that the thing that we're going to see next is we're going to see a much more collectivist attitude at the geopolitical level.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: We're going to start seeing national leaders step up who understand that we are now in a world where nationalism no longer serves the individual country and that learning to work together with the rest of the world is going to be beneficial both for them and for us.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I think this is just the next step in human consciousness where we realize that the old patterns of behavior that we used to cling on to are no longer serving us, and that the thing that we've been afraid to become this entire time is actually the thing that is going to be our salvation.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I think we're getting closer, I think we're getting closer and closer to that point.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_03: And really, I think this just boils down to leadership is it's going to take people who have done the work, who can step into positions of leadership, who can turn around to the and I hate using this word because it has religious connotations, but flock and go, hey, I will lead you into the future that I know that we need to build.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_03: Do not be afraid, I will get us there.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_03: And but it has to be people who have done the work, or else people aren't going to trust them to get them there.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's exactly right.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_03: I I think we are very close to that point.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_03: At least I'm I'm very optimistic that we are.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I have to say that I I do share your hope.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, when I spoke of being around the fire and now knowing what we have, it was sort of figurative in in that maybe we'll have community that we are just glad to have, you know, and simplicity that we just are willing to enjoy type of things.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: But I agree with you about um the awakening that's sort of maybe starting to ripple.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um I did a podcast with an individual the other day who's got a book called Um Fierce Vulnerability in a Fractured World.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, even though it feels like the world, and I'm butchering this, but even though it feels like the world is burning down and falling apart and broken everywhere, he said, I truly have the greatest hope that we are on our way to a more much more beautiful world.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I I think so too.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think more people uh that are willing to do the work that you've done, Benjamin, and to say the things out loud.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think that it it's happening, right?
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: I have to tell you, it's been a long time uh of this living in me and me getting to a point where I'm like, you know what?
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: I don't care what people think of what I have to say.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna say what I see and trust what the universe does with it.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because for so long I feared saying what I see.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_02: I feared the judgment or the ridicule or um frankly the danger that might come to me uh for having said it as a woman or as a gay woman, you know.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I'm done with that because what you said in these letters we need to speak this stuff into the world, right?
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I can really honor that.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like this conversation could go all day.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know what, it could, and I think maybe when we get off the air, I'm gonna see if you're interested in doing a project together.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_02: But um honestly, right now, I think you doing what you're doing, I want to encourage people to check out the book Um Sincerely America.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_02: Where can where can folks get that?
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh if you go to my website, well, you can get it right on Amazon if you search for Sincerely America, Benjamin John Lee, or if there's a direct link on my website, Benjaminjohnlee.com.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's where they can find my book.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh if anybody's interested in working, because I do professional uh life transformation coaching and shadow work coaching.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_03: If you're interested in that, go to the initiationsource.com.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_03: That's my company.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um I also work here as the head life coach at the College of Charleston's Life Design Program.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and if you just if you just want to reach out and chat, hit me up on Instagram at benjamin.john.lee.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_03: But those are all places you can find me.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I if you would send me those so that I can make sure those are all in the show note.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I just want to I want to celebrate.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like uh I feel like I found somebody that gets me.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I uh what I'm doing is trying to bring stories to the surface that are often not told and exposing people to the people and the stories they often won't meet themselves.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm also doing uh work to educate people about what trauma is and what what I've got to heal what raised you.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: We all have to do our own work if this is ever gonna work.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_02: We all have to do our own stuff, right?
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: And unfortunately, as you said earlier, and as we know firsthand, uh particularly having problems with substances, uh sometimes you have to absolutely reach the end of yourself before you're willing to change.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because it doesn't feel like you're the problem.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't feel like you have anything that you've done that you're doing that needs to change, right?
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_02: What would you say is one or two things, besides working on themselves, ourselves, besides working on ourselves, could folks who have the privilege, like it's such a triggering word?
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um for folks who have money to give or time to volunteer or causes to support, what kinds of things would you say that somebody might look into doing to begin healing this nation?
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_03: Honestly, my answer to that is always is always do whatever speaks to you.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_03: Like there when it comes to rebuilding the fractures in our society, there's no there's no priority system or tier system.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like each of our realities is very specific to us.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_03: So if you find one issue that's more important than another issue, then go support that issue.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's the great part about the society that we live in is we are all individuals, but at the same time, we're a collective.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: And by by taking care of the collective, we can take care of ourselves, and by taking care of ourselves, we can take care of the collective.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's just that's how this works.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: So one-on-one.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like you don't there doesn't have to be a right thing.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_03: Like, if if you don't want to volunteer and you have extra money, then find people who are doing things in areas that are important to you and help support them.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't even have to be money.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_03: If somebody is spreading a message that resonates with you, help signal boost it.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like use your social media to be like, hey, I really like what this person has to say.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_03: You know, support the stuff that they're doing, get their message out there.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like it doesn't have to be a financial reciprocation.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then, as I said, it doesn't even have to look like straight volunteering.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_03: Just go for a walk in the park one day.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_03: And if you see somebody sitting on a bench by themselves, sit down next to them, ask them what's on their mind.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like just strike a conversation with somebody.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like it can be that easy.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to leave your job, you don't have to make up a picket sign and go stand on the corner.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to, I mean, just increase your awareness, increase your willingness, uh, and do the things that are calling you because those are the things that I believe we all have our gifts, we all have our um desires in our hearts, and we have to listen to them, and and it all plays out, you know.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_02: Benjamin, thank you so much for your time, man.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: This has been one of my favorite conversations in a long time.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I really value your vision, I value your consciousness, and I value your um all of the ways that you're helping the people in your world.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you for that.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I appreciate those words.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_03: They actually mean a lot.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_03: Right on.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_03: And thank you.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for sharing your story with me.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm I'm sure that you're used to being open with it, but like thank you for that vulnerability because seeing that sort of vulnerability makes it easier for me to show my vulnerability in the world.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_03: So I very much appreciate the things that you've shared with me today as well.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right on, brother.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate that.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_02: If this conversation sparked something for you, or if you want to dive deeper, head over to soulnotskin.com and take a look around.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_02: Grab a copy of the book, Soul Knot Skin, free resources, or get on the wait list for our next workshop.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you'll pull up a chair next time to hang out with us again.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: We're figuring out this world and ourselves at the same exact time.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_02: Growing as we listen to the stories of others.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_02: Let's keep getting to know each other.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_02: After all, we are in this together.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_02: See you next time.