Latest / The Woo Report: Everyday Spirituality / 9. 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat with Justin Walter

Transcript

9. 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreat with Justin Walter · The Woo Report: Everyday Spirituality

• 0:02
  Would you ever do a ten day silent retreat?
• 0:04
  Give up your phone, give up all communication with friends and family and sit with yourself for ten days.
• 0:11
  It's daunting right?
• 0:13
  Young Pueblo, one of my absolute favorite spiritual writers swears by these retreats.
• 0:18
  But I've also heard one spiritual practitioner, after another on this podcast even say things like, you don't need to do a ten day silent retreat to tap into your intuition, or you don't need to do a ten day silent retreat to receive guidance.
• 0:32
  And those statements are definitely true.
• 0:35
  But what if you did do it?
• 0:38
  What would it be like?
• 0:40
  Would you lose your mind or find yourself Fresh off his first ever ten day the passenger meditation retreat.
• 0:49
  My best friend and your bucket list guy, Justin Walter is here to share all the details.
• 0:55
  The highs, the lows, the logistics and the raw truths he faced as he sat with himself for ten days.
• 1:03
  We were supposed to record this episode remotely, but in true Justin fashion, he got on a plane, flew 3000 miles across the country a mere day after finishing this retreat, and surprised me on my doorstep so we could record it together.
• 1:17
  There's a very heartwarming reel on the wall, reports Instagram.
• 1:20
  If you care to see my reaction.
• 1:22
  An instant takeaway, however, is not only did Justin make it through this ten day silent retreat, but he is in one piece.
• 1:30
  and he's come out the other side transformed with a new skill, a clear mindset.
• 1:37
  And after ten days of noble silence, he's ready to talk.
• 1:44
  Hi, I'm Laura Scarrpati, filmmaker, and woo woo enthusiast here today.
• 1:50
  To cut through the noise, pull back the veil, and cozy up in this space between reality and spirituality.
• 1:58
  Thanks for listening to the woo report.
• 2:02
  Justin.
• 2:03
  Walter, I cannot believe you're sitting on my couch right now.
• 2:08
  You were not supposed to be here.
• 2:09
  You finished a ten day silent retreat?
• 2:12
  Yeah, three days ago. Yeah.
• 2:15
  We were supposed to do this conversation remotely, but yesterday day, you showed up at my doorstep 3000 miles away from where you live in Los Angeles.
• 2:26
  As a surprise.
• 2:27
  Surprise, I'm here.
• 2:31
  I. I'm so touched.
• 2:33
  And it truly is so magical that you're here.
• 2:38
  I cannot believe you are the only person that would do this.
• 2:41
  You would come off of a ten day silent retreat.
• 2:44
  I've already getting teary eyed.
• 2:48
  I love you so much.
• 2:50
  And it really means so much to me that you're here.
• 2:52
  I'm so excited.
• 2:53
  I know I'm already crying like Mary.
• 2:56
  Crying.
• 2:58
  Oh, God.
• 3:00
  Emotions are high.
• 3:01
  I'm so happy to be here.
• 3:03
  you know, I planned doing this before the silent retreat even came up in my life.
• 3:07
  Oh my God.
• 3:08
  February 13th, I texted man, I'm coming on the woohoo report and I want to come in person and surprise Laura to do it in person.
• 3:16
  So this has been in the works before the retreat even happened.
• 3:19
  So I'm so I'm so excited to be know at least something because I'm so proud of what you're doing.
• 3:24
  Oh my gosh, to be a part of it and to sit on your couch and to get to have a conversation like this with you, oh my gosh, I'm already crying.
• 3:31
  And we're not even a minute in. I'm upset.
• 3:33
  000, so much to me.
• 3:37
  Oh, for everyone listening, Justin is, I like to say, my soulmate.
• 3:42
  He doesn't said that to me, but oh my God, we are soulmates covered.
• 3:46
  and you know, no, he's not my husband.
• 3:50
  My husband is also my soulmate.
• 3:51
  But Justin and people soulmates, multiple soulmates like deep soul family.
• 3:56
  I'm actually curious what you like.
• 3:59
  How would you define the soul family?
• 4:01
  Well, it's interesting because at my 40th birthday party, it was fun to see a lot of my soul mates argue that they were my soul mates.
• 4:10
  I think I remember you say like as I salivate in that either like Andy Aubrey or a vegetarian, like, no, he's my soul mate.
• 4:17
  It was a fight to the day. It was a fight.
• 4:19
  I think I would define a soul family as obviously we have family through blood.
• 4:24
  We have chosen family through friendship.
• 4:28
  And then a soul.
• 4:29
  Family is people that you're just really connected through on, on a soul level.
• 4:34
  And that is a different connection versus a blood or a chosen connection.
• 4:40
  And we definitely have that.
• 4:40
  We always have.
• 4:42
  And it's just a it's a deep knowing where everything's easy, everything's light, not necessarily always light, but everything's funny.
• 4:51
  There's a flow.
• 4:51
  There's a, that's a natural flow.
• 4:54
  Yeah.
• 4:54
  There's never I think it's friendships can be hard to have the hard conversations.
• 4:58
  But yeah, there's always an ease of, there's no there's just a continual connection that doesn't take effort.
• 5:06
  It's a flow.
• 5:07
  It's a flow and it energizes all the time.
• 5:10
  and you frigging showed up at my doorstep yesterday, and it just really put me in flow, flow, baby.
• 5:17
  Like.
• 5:18
  And we've been trying so hard for the last day to not talk about this, so I'm so excited to get into it.
• 5:22
  Okay, so let's jump in.
• 5:24
  Justin, you went to a ten day silent retreat meditation, meditation, silent retreat.
• 5:31
  do you feel now?
• 5:32
  I would say it was the hardest mental thing I've ever done in my life and probably the most transformative experience of my life.
• 5:42
  It was wild.
• 5:44
  I went from zero hours of meditating in my life to throwing myself into 11 hours a day for ten days.
• 5:54
  I like to say I went into meditation prison.
• 5:58
  It was Groundhog's Day meditation prison in a sense that we were on a schedule from 4 a.m.
• 6:05
  to 9 p.m.
• 6:06
  17 hour days were 11 of those hours were dedicated to meditating.
• 6:11
  And as someone who doesn't meditate, I went into it because I wanted to do something out of my comfort zone.
• 6:20
  I love and live out of my comfort zone because this is not normal for you.
• 6:24
  Like that's what.
• 6:24
  So tell everyone what you do.
• 6:26
  So in a nutshell, I have dedicated my life and my passion.
• 6:29
  Number one passion in life is connection through travel, travel as connection, adventure and travel is transformation.
• 6:36
  And all of my passions and a lot of my time has been spent traveling the world and then getting to do that as an on camera travel expert, as a television producer in the travel space, as a digital content creator, the list can go on.
• 6:50
  But travel is my passion and I love it because I think it's the greatest teacher in life.
• 6:55
  I have grown so much through all of my travels, and what was exciting about this experience is there.
• 7:03
  There aren't a lot of experiences anymore that actually make me feel nervous or take me out of my comfort zone.
• 7:09
  That's because you are swimming with sharks or you're sharks.
• 7:12
  You're jumping out of planes.
• 7:13
  You're literally doing every sort of adventurous.
• 7:16
  Yes, you know, scary.
• 7:19
  And, you know, being in one dimensions.
• 7:21
  I love those type of adventures because what I've realized is the power of now, when I'm in those adventures and experiences, there's nothing more important than that moment in time.
• 7:32
  And it's that the power of now, of living in the moment, experiencing life in the beauty and the magic of this world in the moment.
• 7:41
  So going into this experience, a good friend of mine, you know, told me it changed her life and said, you need to do this.
• 7:49
  And she told me this after I did a six month trip around the world last year for my 40th birthday, and we got together after it, and she told me she did this and it changed her life.
• 7:58
  And I said, that would be so hard for me not to talk for ten days.
• 8:01
  I'm such a talker.
• 8:02
  I'm a talker, and I'm a communicator, and I'm a connector with people, and you're a hustler, like you're not a guy that's sitting around, like hanging on the couch.
• 8:11
  You are doing something.
• 8:13
  You're going somewhere, you're working out, you're on a hike.
• 8:15
  You're on an adventure.
• 8:16
  You're shooting something.
• 8:16
  You're traveling.
• 8:18
  You're on a plane.
• 8:18
  You're all over the world.
• 8:20
  I never know where you are.
• 8:22
  So to go for ten days, I was like, oh my God, that would be so hard for me.
• 8:27
  I need to do it.
• 8:27
  and that's that. It was immediate.
• 8:29
  And it because I trust this friend, I was like, I'm doing it.
• 8:32
  And to these retreats, it's called their vipassana. The.
• 8:37
  What does that mean.
• 8:38
  So vipassana is a specific type of meditation and it's derived from Buddha and this specific type.
• 8:45
  What I didn't realize if we even go back, it's I have tried meditating a lot in my life and guided meditation and and I never it never worked for me.
• 8:53
  It never worked. Well.
• 8:54
  You're you're sitting with like the calm app, something's in your ear and you're sitting there and you're trying to be still and your mind's wandering.
• 9:00
  So I fall asleep. Okay?
• 9:02
  I, I seen you fall asleep, I fall asleep, I get distracted in this idea that everyone's like, oh, meditating is so powerful because you you become the observer and you watch your thoughts go by, and then you can just, like, let them pass or like the river or the leaves or all these things.
• 9:18
  And it never works for me. I'm 40 years old.
• 9:20
  I did not buy the the woowoo around meditation and honestly, people would be like, meditation changed my life.
• 9:28
  I kind of roll my eyes like, well, it doesn't do anything for me.
• 9:31
  so this technique of meditation is a very specific technique, which we'll get into.
• 9:38
  But what the biggest thing that was the that I didn't know going into it that surprised me was I always thought meditation was a passive thing where you sit back and you just like, try not to think and let thoughts go by, and then you like, oh, things come up and you figure them out.
• 9:56
  This was an active form of meditation, and I didn't know meditation could be an active form of meditation.
• 10:02
  And we'll get into the specifics.
• 10:03
  But how I like to like, think about it is we go to the gym to work out our bodies, to get our body in great shape.
• 10:09
  So we're physically working out our bodies for an hour, hour and a half at the gym so we can look good and feel good.
• 10:16
  Some of us are, some of us.
• 10:18
  Some of you are high, low.
• 10:20
  The gym is actually a place of meditation for me.
• 10:22
  Yeah, sure.
• 10:22
  I go to the gym. It's therapeutic.
• 10:24
  I turn my brain off. Yeah, I work out my physical body.
• 10:27
  I love swimming now instead of running.
• 10:29
  Running because there's no music and I'm in the water for 30 minutes and it's just like, a movement that feels great where it's.
• 10:36
  I'm in my brain thinking, you know, I before this retreat, a lot of my, like, meditation was actually in the pool.
• 10:42
  but so for this form of meditation, how I look at it as it's treating like your body as the gym, you're actually using the senses on your body, connected to your brain and your for, let's say you sit down for an hour meditation.
• 11:00
  You're not sitting there passively.
• 11:03
  You're using your brain, analyzing the body and the senses on your body to do this form of meditation where you're using the senses to not react, whether they're painful or whether they're pleasure.
• 11:19
  You're not reacting to the senses on your body to train and rewire your brain to not react to things in your life.
• 11:29
  So you're on a cellular, deeper level, rewiring your brain to not react to senses.
• 11:37
  It's crazy.
• 11:38
  So give me an example. Okay.
• 11:40
  so in fact, let's go.
• 11:43
  I'm going to kind of go back into like the how we learn the meditation. Yes.
• 11:47
  So we set the scene.
• 11:48
  This isn't just to say, okay. Yeah, let's set the scene.
• 11:51
  I went to Joshua Tree.
• 11:52
  These retreat centers are all over the world.
• 11:55
  And I'm going to tell you what's crazy about it.
• 11:57
  They cost $0.
• 12:00
  That's bananas.
• 12:01
  Your accommodations, your food, the food at Joshua Tree.
• 12:04
  it was 29 palms, actually, which is right outside of Joshua Tree.
• 12:08
  The food was delicious.
• 12:08
  It was a vegetarian meal.
• 12:10
  Every meal you have breakfast, you have lunch, you can get a third meal, but typically you can have just fruit for the third meal.
• 12:17
  or you can kind of ask the assistant teacher to get a third meal.
• 12:21
  so the food was great.
• 12:23
  The accommodations are great.
• 12:24
  It's a safe setting, $0.
• 12:26
  It's 100% donation based by students that have gone in the past.
• 12:33
  The the the guy who founded it, he's like a pilot.
• 12:37
  I would say he's not a prophet, but he's like, you know, just like such a wise, enlightened person.
• 12:42
  He wanted the entire network of this form of meditation to be free for anyone that wanted it to improve their life.
• 12:49
  And the whole goal is to improve happiness, peace and harmony in your life through unnatural form of using your own body to do that.
• 13:00
  There is no drugs. There is.
• 13:02
  This is not ayahuasca.
• 13:03
  There's not.
• 13:04
  There is no therapy.
• 13:06
  It's literally using your body.
• 13:07
  So it's free, which I found wild.
• 13:10
  And it was you could tell that there were different like different in afterwards.
• 13:14
  You could talk to people, but people of all different socio economic status is and it was just amazing that some people donated no money.
• 13:22
  Some people probably donated a lot of money and donated money.
• 13:25
  But what I was also excited is to use my platforms to get to share, to come on something like this, to use my Instagram to go on KTLA to talk about it.
• 13:34
  So I'm excited to really spread the news.
• 13:35
  And if I touch one person to make one, to go in and improves their life, that that to them is more important than me donating $1,000, right?
• 13:45
  so I go to Joshua Tree, you turn in your phone.
• 13:48
  So turned off my phone.
• 13:50
  Were you okay with this?
• 13:50
  Were you nervous about that?
• 13:52
  I wasn't, it was interesting. Like, I use my phone all the time for work, and we're on our phones all the time.
• 13:57
  But I wasn't, and I thought the hardest part would be not talking.
• 14:02
  It wasn't at all.
• 14:02
  It was easy for me to not talk for ten days.
• 14:05
  And there are moments where you're talking.
• 14:06
  There is. There's assistant teachers.
• 14:08
  The men are separated from the women.
• 14:10
  So the men in the meditation, all were on the left side.
• 14:14
  The women were on the right.
• 14:15
  You have a male teacher for the men, a female teacher for the females.
• 14:19
  And you could sign up for interviews where you could have 15 minutes a day to go ask questions to the teachers, because the whole course is actually taught through video and audio recordings from the guy that founded it who was he passed away, I can't remember maybe 20 years ago, but in 1991 he recorded it.
• 14:36
  And then they use these recordings to then do it in all these centers around the world. Wow.
• 14:43
  So even like the signups for this is like quicker than, like trying to get tickets to Tomorrowland or coach, like, you know.
• 14:50
  Yeah, right.
• 14:50
  Or Burning Man when burning Burning Man used to sell out and all those things.
• 14:53
  So like they have every center has registration where they have an announcement of there's these dates for the ten day retreat.
• 15:02
  The registrations opens on this date and you gotta you got to set your alarm and sign up.
• 15:07
  I actually got off the waitlist.
• 15:08
  I've been on waitlist for this for about a year, so I've been on different retreat waitlists in the timing.
• 15:13
  I can't even explain how perfect timing it was for me to go at this point in time.
• 15:17
  I arrived and I turned in my phone, turned it off knowing that I would not have access to it for ten days.
• 15:25
  And you put your phone, your wallet and your keys in a bag, and then they put it in the closet, and then it is like prison.
• 15:32
  No, it was just like, okay.
• 15:34
  And it wasn't hard for me to turn on my phone at all.
• 15:36
  I set up, you know, my emails.
• 15:37
  I set up out of office on assignment.
• 15:40
  and it wasn't an assignment. I did this.
• 15:42
  This was not for work.
• 15:43
  This was truly a trip just for me.
• 15:45
  And I didn't do it as a as a job.
• 15:49
  and then and then you.
• 15:50
  There's it's called noble Silence.
• 15:52
  Is that the certain point?
• 15:53
  Then you start noble Silence where you aren't you cannot talk to anybody on the retreat.
• 15:58
  You also don't make eye contact and non-verbal communication.
• 16:02
  So literally for meals we're in like a cafeteria type setting.
• 16:05
  There's tables, you have your name at a specific seat.
• 16:09
  You have to sit at that seat every day.
• 16:13
  And I sat next to a man that I didn't even look at.
• 16:16
  And we're eating our meals, you know, like sometimes look to see, like, I would like to have fun observing, like, what are people eating?
• 16:21
  And then also, Laura, you know, me, I was like, I feel like I'm in The Hunger Games or the Squid Games because it started with like 35 men, 35 women in every meal.
• 16:31
  I would look around to see, are there missing bodies and missing bodies started, you know, a day, two missing bodies started happening.
• 16:38
  I couldn't do it. I couldn't handle it.
• 16:40
  And it was funny because like, energetically, you know, I loved the TV show survivor.
• 16:45
  I was like, who would I want in my alliances and in my tribe?
• 16:48
  And one of my buddies thought I'd pick for the final two.
• 16:51
  He was gone on day two. Oh no.
• 16:55
  That's like what?
• 16:56
  His energy.
• 17:00
  Oh my gosh.
• 17:02
  Wait. So I've so many questions.
• 17:04
  I have so many guys.
• 17:05
  So when you first walk in though, you're talking to.
• 17:07
  Yeah, but I got there late actually, like, you could get there.
• 17:10
  You're supposed to get there from 2 to 4.
• 17:11
  And the traffic from L.A. was awful. Gosh.
• 17:14
  So I got there at like seven.
• 17:15
  And I actually was glad because I didn't want to talk to people.
• 17:19
  Yeah, I've been on ayahuasca trips and what I've learned is I'm such an empath that in those type of experiences I am like, so how are you doing?
• 17:28
  And I take people's energy on and people gravitate towards me and open up to me about their life.
• 17:33
  So I was so happy not to have to talk to anybody in this experience was 100% about me.
• 17:39
  Yeah, and it was nice to go in there and kind of, when I got in there, turned my phone and had a quick little meal.
• 17:45
  Let's start the the no talking.
• 17:47
  so it's called Noble Silence and that's for the ten days.
• 17:51
  It is broken on the last of day ten half of the day.
• 17:55
  You then get, you can talk to people and start talking to people.
• 17:57
  so turn in your phones.
• 17:59
  No talking.
• 18:01
  There's it's actually ten days of the actual retreat.
• 18:04
  So the day before and the day after, it's kind of a 12 day experience.
• 18:08
  So long.
• 18:09
  Yeah, well, I kept thinking about you because you texted me the night before you went, and you sent me this schedule, which is so wild, which we'll get into the exact specifics.
• 18:20
  But you sent me this schedule, and you were like, this feels like prison.
• 18:23
  Yeah.
• 18:24
  And, you know, in between this time, you were there, I went to Grand Cayman Islands with, you know, on a trip.
• 18:30
  And the whole time I was there, I was like, Justin is still sitting in silence.
• 18:34
  And then I got back in the trip and I was like, Justin is still sitting.
• 18:37
  And I think that you the entire time.
• 18:39
  And I just I couldn't wait.
• 18:41
  And then I finally got a text from you.
• 18:43
  Yeah. When you were allowed to have your phone back.
• 18:46
  And I was so excited to see that you were okay.
• 18:48
  It was, you know, it's transformative.
• 18:49
  And I'm like, don't tell me anything I want.
• 18:51
  You want to hear it on the podcast.
• 18:53
  One thing that was interesting in not having my phone and kind of being so removed from everything, by the way, you can't bring books, you can't bring notes, you can't journal nothing.
• 19:02
  It's 100% designed that you're just living in your own body and brain for ten days in this experience.
• 19:10
  And I followed it, I didn't, I didn't people some people probably snuck in journals or books.
• 19:14
  And no, I followed the rule to a tee, which I wanted to.
• 19:18
  And but what was interesting was one of the thoughts, I mean, it's so many thoughts and oh my gosh, so many thoughts.
• 19:23
  For ten days I was, you know, being away from the phone and not being able to talk to family and friends.
• 19:28
  And it was really like the world goes on without me.
• 19:31
  Yeah.
• 19:32
  And it was the realization of life goes on.
• 19:35
  So because of that, how do I want life to go on while I'm in it?
• 19:38
  And that was one thing where it was like, I want to have a powerful impact in all of my relationships and in my life and in my job and in my career, in everything I do when I'm in it.
• 19:49
  Because when I'm removed from it, it doesn't matter.
• 19:52
  It's going to go on without me.
• 19:53
  So it was just really this moment of like, I want to make the most out of everything I do and everyone I impact.
• 20:00
  Because when I have that opportunity, that's an opportunity that I get only while I'm alive and the world goes on when I'm not allowed.
• 20:07
  Oh my gosh, I love that so much.
• 20:09
  When you just said that about your phone, it just triggered a memory for me.
• 20:12
  When we were in Thailand together in 2013, I fully forgot about until this moment, but I this is 2013 and Justin and I went to Thailand and Cambodia.
• 20:21
  We shot a web series together and I, we went to a Thai boxing match.
• 20:26
  Match, and I went to like, to pee and pull my pants up.
• 20:30
  My phone was my back pocket.
• 20:32
  It fell into this toilet that already had pee in it.
• 20:36
  It was so gross.
• 20:37
  And of course it's in the toilet and I grab.
• 20:39
  I put my hand in the toilet and grab the phone and run out.
• 20:43
  I was like, SOS! And you know, we're in Thailand, so there's rice everywhere.
• 20:47
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:47
  We went to, you know, we got rice, we put it in rice for a couple days.
• 20:50
  It did not work.
• 20:51
  And I was without a phone.
• 20:52
  And I remember, you know, borrowing your phone to call Matt and but, you know, it was weird to not have a phone.
• 21:00
  Now, thinking back on what the universe is like.
• 21:02
  Get off your phone.
• 21:03
  It's not about, you know, it's not even about capturing the memories right now.
• 21:08
  It's about being in the now and being in the moment 100%.
• 21:11
  I didn't miss my phone at all.
• 21:13
  There was not one moment I cared like, wow.
• 21:15
  And and Laura, you know me, I actually enjoyed not talking.
• 21:19
  It was.
• 21:19
  I thought that would be the hardest part.
• 21:22
  The hardest part was not that.
• 21:23
  The hardest part was the meditating.
• 21:25
  Okay, so talk to me about the schedule.
• 21:26
  Let's get deep into the schedule.
• 21:28
  What time are you waking up?
• 21:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: 00 am and then, and you do have an alarm in your room.
• 21:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: They put an alarm in your room.
• 21:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I actually set my alarm to 420.
• 21:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And because the if any special reason it was 420, I was like, I'm mentally going to just, you know, have weed in my mind.
• 21:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: no, I just I needed ten minutes to before 430 is when you have to start your first meditation, 430 to 630 and you start New Day with a two hour meditation and that was the first day that was so hard for me to get up that early and and then to meditate.
• 22:02
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And, and there's certain times where you can either meditate in your room or you can meditate in the meditation hall.
• 22:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you have that option.
• 22:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So now when you're meditating, you're up before anybody.
• 22:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You have to sit criss cross applesauce.
• 22:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: How are you set? I have to Chris.
• 22:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You don't have to sit that way.
• 22:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You can do it whatever way you're comfortable.
• 22:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I chose the 430 to 631 to do it in my room.
• 22:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And after day two, I also started taking cold showers in the morning because I needed to.
• 22:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I needed to wake up because the first day I was falling asleep and I was like, I don't know how to do this.
• 22:33
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And the assistant teacher said, splash your face with cold water.
• 22:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I've gotten into saunas and cold plunges this year.
• 22:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And so I decided I'm just going to only take cold showers while I'm here.
• 22:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I started only taking cold.
• 22:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is the most aggressive ten days you get.
• 22:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're only taking cold showers.
• 22:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And you know what?
• 22:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I just took a cold shower this morning. Downstairs.
• 22:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I took a hot one.
• 22:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then at the last, like 30s, I take a cold.
• 22:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Now we are.
• 22:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I was just talking about this is Lauren Pomerantz on the episode that went out.
• 22:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, last week was, how?
• 23:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We don't know. We don't understand.
• 23:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like, who's taking cold showers?
• 23:05
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And of course it's you. Of course it's. Yeah. Well, it's it's amazing.
• 23:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I would challenge I would challenge my buddy Brad and shout out to Brad.
• 23:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: He's this badass guru that I met in a beat.
• 23:14
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: and he, he, he does cold punches all the time, but he would say start with 10s at the end of your shower with a cold shower, then go to 15, try and build up to like a minute a day ending your cold showers with the cold shower.
• 23:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It will change your day.
• 23:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Cold plunges are the best thing you could do.
• 23:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, in terms of like a sauna, steam room, all that because it just re-energize your body and it gets you going for the day.
• 23:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I would do cold showers, then I would do the two hour meditation and there were mornings. By the way, I did not want to do it.
• 23:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: There were times throughout the entire trip I did not want to meditate there.
• 23:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Day six I broke down. I had a break down.
• 23:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, of course I got into my room and I was like, I don't want to effing be here anymore.
• 23:57
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I have four more days of this.
• 24:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't want to meditate.
• 24:02
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I am so sick of meditating.
• 24:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And so, so 630 then 630 to seven was breakfast, then 7 to 8 was a rest period, then 8 to 11, three hours meditating different places every day.
• 24:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: There was an hour in the morning, hour an afternoon, an hour towards night, where you had to meditate in the meditation hall with the entire group.
• 24:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it was the assistant teachers in the group.
• 24:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then a certain point, I think it was after day four, it was called, something sitting and determined and I can't remember right now, but where you actually once the hour meditation started, you couldn't move like so if you sat crisscross applesauce, you couldn't move like the challenge was.
• 24:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You cannot move for this full hour.
• 24:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's strong determination.
• 24:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Wow. So for I think it was six days, we had to meditate three times a day.
• 24:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Strong determination on where the position.
• 24:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Once it started, that was the position you had to try as much as you could, did not move in. What was it doing?
• 25:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was building up your mental tolerance.
• 25:05
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was building up your endurance and your strength of if your ass started hurting or you got a cramp, you could not.
• 25:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You like.
• 25:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The challenge was don't move in it.
• 25:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: If you did get in a really painful position, you could move.
• 25:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But let me tell you, in all those that never move.
• 25:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Wow. And it was, it was.
• 25:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This was the, This is a mental Olympics.
• 25:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, it is a mental marathon.
• 25:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I have never worked out my brain in this way.
• 25:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's when we'll get to it.
• 25:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Rewired my brain and changed my life in different ways.
• 25:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: In a way that now I look back being like, wow.
• 25:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So, okay, so what is the what is the process of meditation?
• 25:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you're you're focused on your breathing. Like how do you drop in? Okay.
• 25:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So this is where the ten day course in why I actually had a friend who I saw afterwards and I was like, you need to go do this.
• 25:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like you're one of the top three people.
• 25:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm like, you need to go do this.
• 25:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then she started looking like, oh, maybe I'll do like, one day.
• 25:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I know this form of meditation.
• 25:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You need ten days to learn it.
• 26:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like there's there is a reason I actually, Laura did not fully learn it until day nine of ten.
• 26:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like I don't understand. Okay, so 99 of ten, you really had one day of doing it the right way I know.
• 26:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Right? Okay.
• 26:14
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So it's really the first four days and I want you to do this.
• 26:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I want you to close your eyes and don't do this if you're driving.
• 26:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. Don't do this if you're driving, I want you to close your eyes.
• 26:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I want you to breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your nose.
• 26:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We did that for four days, 11 hours a day, focusing just on the breath, going in and out of your nose.
• 26:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then building from that. It was.
• 26:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You can open your eyes like I my saying it.
• 26:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Okay, so here's the thing. First off, doing that for four days was insane.
• 26:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like the simplest thing in the world, just focusing on your breath was the hardest thing in the world because in the beginning, on day one, doing that, the amount of noise in my brain in in every one's brain is the amount of noise we live with on a daily basis.
• 27:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So our brain is constantly knots are being tied, distractions are being had.
• 27:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And to just focus on the breath going in the nose, out the nose, is it going through one nostril?
• 27:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Is it going through two nostrils?
• 27:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Is it changing?
• 27:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then you start building day two and three.
• 27:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Then you start focusing on okay, now you're just going to focus on the triangle portion of your nose and the upper part of your lip.
• 27:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: By day four, you're really breathing in and out, but you're trying to focus on the sensation feeling of your like one point on the upper part of your lip.
• 27:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you're first building on learning how to just focus on your breath, getting the brain to start focusing on just that.
• 27:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Then you start trying to get the brain to feel one tiny spot and like area on your face, the triangle of your nose.
• 27:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you're combining breathing with only focusing on the brain, centering on that spot on your face.
• 27:57
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That is the foundation of the four days.
• 27:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Literally.
• 28:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: On day four, I finally and one of my afternoon sessions in my bed, I got into the meditative state for the first time in my life where I was in the zone, breathing, focusing on that part, and I was conscious of like, oh my gosh, I'm actually like meditating.
• 28:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm not waking up, I'm not sleeping.
• 28:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then I was like, I got this.
• 28:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I was like, I got this, I did it.
• 28:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then the next day they introduced the actual started the like, real vipassana meditation.
• 28:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I was pissed because I was like starting from scratch again.
• 28:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it was just like, like, this is so hard.
• 28:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: What's the next part?
• 28:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So once you get the breathing down and I knew none of this going into an I actually think if you go into it blind in, you don't know, that's okay.
• 28:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But if you go into it knowing this, you're going to be way better prepared to know, like what you're expecting.
• 28:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: it's then monitoring sensations on your entire body.
• 28:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So it's going from you just focused on learning how to how to feel your brain.
• 28:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like just focus on your upper lip to then scanning the entire body feeling sensations throughout the entire body.
• 29:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This took me four days.
• 29:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This took me five days to really master and figure out taht it's hard.
• 29:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But when I also before I kind of get into that a little bit more, the course is there's this the teacher is is doing all this stuff, teaching it audio, but every night there's a discourse.
• 29:23
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So there's an hour and like 15 minute class.
• 29:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So it actually felt like going to school.
• 29:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This was actually one of the best courses I've ever taken.
• 29:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I learned so much not only about my body, my brain, but about like laws of the universe, natural laws, and like the the idea that nothing is permanent, the law of impermanence.
• 29:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's the idea of and I hope I can explain this, that all make sense.
• 29:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's like everything is always changing.
• 29:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The body is always changing.
• 29:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The law of impermanence.
• 29:57
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Nothing is ever permanent.
• 29:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So if we recognize changes, the only constant change is the only yes, the only constant. Right.
• 30:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So if we recognize that there are physical changes constantly going on our body, we can use those on an experiential level to rewire our brain.
• 30:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So if we can really teach our brain that nothing is permanent, using our body through an experiential level, not an intellectual level, you can learn all this through a class, through a course, the reading.
• 30:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But if you don't actually teach your brain through experience, you're never going to get it.
• 30:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's the whole principle of you have to learn on a experiential level, by using the changing senses on your body to rewire your brain.
• 30:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: In this stuff. I was like, what?
• 30:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's why it's it's like on a deeper philosophical level that is so simple, but this is what Buddha like.
• 30:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Figure it out as an enlightened one and then wanted to teach people.
• 30:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And also I'm going to point out this is a non-religious thing.
• 31:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This has nothing to do with religion.
• 31:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Anyone from any religious sect, anyone from any racial background, anyone.
• 31:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is a universal scientific like discovery or principle that if we use our body to figure out, to rewire our brain by monitoring the senses, we can then take it to the next level of what brings misery in our lives.
• 31:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Okay, this is this is like, why do humans default to misery, right?
• 31:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Okay.
• 31:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And this was I was like blown away because it's so simple.
• 31:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I didn't understand this before.
• 31:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's the idea of attachment.
• 31:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Attachment brings us misery.
• 31:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Whether it's a craving which is attachment to something good, or whether it is an aversion in attachment to something bad, in an attachment, is that we're doing it all the time.
• 31:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: As humans, we are attaching ourselves in it, whether it's a good or a bad thing.
• 32:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Attachment will bring misery into your life, so it's rewiring the brain to not attach, to recognize that everything in my body is changing all the time.
• 32:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Everything in the world is changing all the time.
• 32:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I have to build a skill to objectively learn to not attach to things that are going on that are out of my control because everything is out of our control.
• 32:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So it's really like all these like, teachings in like that is making my brain explode.
• 32:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Do you?
• 32:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And here's the thing.
• 32:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It took me days to grasp this.
• 32:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Does that make sense?
• 32:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So it's because it's hard to understand.
• 32:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Look, I'll tell you what it brings up for me.
• 32:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Is that my dad?
• 32:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, who is the therapist? That has been.
• 32:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I feel like whispering these types of, you know, universal laws to me my whole life.
• 32:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I've been rolling my eyes at him my whole life.
• 32:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: He's told me when I was little to never be attached to an outcome. Yes.
• 33:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, you know our expectations.
• 33:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We all have expectations. Yes, we have expectations for everything.
• 33:05
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We have expectations for your parents.
• 33:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Have expectations for you and your baby.
• 33:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: All these milestones.
• 33:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You have expectations for.
• 33:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Then you're going to grow up and you're going to go to school.
• 33:14
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Then you're going to go to college.
• 33:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're not going to work, then you're going to get a job.
• 33:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, you have other expectations for us our entire lives.
• 33:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And those expectations comes with outcomes that we're expecting.
• 33:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We expect to graduate.
• 33:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We expect to get a job.
• 33:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We expect to find a partner.
• 33:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We expect to do all these things.
• 33:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And if we are attached to the outcome of it, is what he used to say, then we're just going to be disappointed.
• 33:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, whatever the outcome is.
• 33:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You okay? Teary eyed? Yeah.
• 33:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh my God, you're getting teary eyed because it just you what you were talking about just made me realize, like what?
• 33:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: My biggest takeaway, which I haven't shared with.
• 33:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh my God, take takeaway of the experience.
• 33:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh, just in that they changed my life and what it what it was for me was I realized on day two, I really analyze like, what are the miseries in my life and what's.
• 34:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I realized what the source of all those miseries were.
• 34:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it was the same.
• 34:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it was self-doubt.
• 34:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Everything that I had caused misery in my life was attachment to things.
• 34:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But it wasn't happening because of self doubt in my life.
• 34:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it really made me realize, like, I'm the only person that's been getting in the way of my own bigger happiness.
• 34:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm a happy person.
• 34:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We all have things in our lives that are holding us back or struggling in career, in relate, in relationships and all these things and for me, self-doubt was what has been holding me and I've accomplished so much in my life, right?
• 34:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 34:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But it's like now I really feel like I can do anything after these ten days, and I'm not doubting myself anymore.
• 34:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm not going to doubt myself in my career.
• 34:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm not going to doubt myself as a partner in relationships.
• 34:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm not going to doubt myself anymore.
• 34:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I feel like it's just blown open.
• 35:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This new energy in my life of, you know, how much I've been struggling in so many areas of my life, and what is the root of all that?
• 35:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was self-doubt.
• 35:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: How did you get to self-doubt from this?
• 35:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: To me, it just it came it came up when you were meditating.
• 35:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And here's the thing that's crazy.
• 35:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Is this is what's also, that another thing from the experience that was wild is it's this idea of we're constantly adding misery into our lives through attachment.
• 35:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Right.
• 35:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And think of it like you're building a stockpile of misery.
• 35:33
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Once you train your body through this form of meditation to stop adding misery, then it starts getting rid of the old miseries in your life.
• 35:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: If you think of it like this way, as a human, we eat food to survive.
• 35:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: If I were to stop eating food, I'm going to still live for I don't know what it is like three weeks or two weeks or whatever, because my body's going to start eating itself like eating the stored food and the storage in my body.
• 36:02
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So once you stop adding more misery into your life, by objectively learning this skill and not adding more misery, the old miseries start leaving your body and leaving yourself and leaving.
• 36:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So then you start getting rid of it's called sin karez or whatever.
• 36:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And like and it's you start getting rid of the old ones in your body on a deeper cellular level, and you're getting what?
• 36:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: As you're getting rid of them, you have to process them by thinking about them.
• 36:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Well, that's the thing that was like, I was so like, well, like I had one of my biggest questions was like, okay, when these old things are coming up and getting rid of them, how do you process it?
• 36:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like what you do, right?
• 36:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And the assistant teachers like, no, you just let them leave.
• 36:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You just let them leave.
• 36:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: They leave. I'm like, what?
• 36:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't know, but are you going to teach us the skill to process?
• 36:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like when these old wounds, like, come up, it's like, no, you you just let them leave your body.
• 36:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's kind of like ayahuasca.
• 36:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: When you're like ayahuasca, people are always, you know, afraid of the purging, afraid of the puking in the shit.
• 37:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Can I say shitting? Sure.
• 37:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Okay. The shitting.
• 37:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: No, what that's doing is that's getting rid of the shit out of your body on a cellular level.
• 37:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like, if you want to be throwing up, you want to be shitting your brains out if you know you don't have to.
• 37:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But that's not a bad thing.
• 37:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: During ayahuasca.
• 37:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: so we'll need to do an ayahuasca one on one.
• 37:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm not sure if everybody's up to speed on what that means, but we can we can talk about that.
• 37:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, that's hitting the mic.
• 37:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's okay.
• 37:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's what we were supposed to talk.
• 37:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't do this.
• 37:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We have to do it. Otherwise we will be what we were.
• 37:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But it was crazy because I don't know how to in a in I, I really I when I realized like all the self-doubt that has been been my biggest like hurdle in life, it was just freeing to be like, I've, I've already done so much in my life with this self-doubt.
• 37:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: What's going to come next without it?
• 37:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh, well, spoiler alert, what comes next?
• 37:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You literally left this retreat.
• 37:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You left this retreat? Yeah.
• 37:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And you had offer after offer after offer in your inbox waiting for you for all these different opportunities.
• 38:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then even today, you came upstairs today to be like, hey, should I wear this beautiful coral shirt?
• 38:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And you're like, I just got another offer in the middle of the night.
• 38:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Crazy.
• 38:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Which is so wild, the universe is like, oh, your doubt is gone.
• 38:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, you're attachments are gone.
• 38:23
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Let me offer.
• 38:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You are that interesting?
• 38:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Is like I've been going through the last, you know, last year I did this trip around the world.
• 38:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then I got back knowing that I was going to kind of try and transition my career.
• 38:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Most of my career has been television production as a producer.
• 38:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And the great story, which is how we met.
• 38:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yes, yes.
• 38:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Can you talk about that?
• 38:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Years ago as production assistants over a flip cup tournament, when the Golden Globes were canceled, that shot during the writers, the writers.
• 38:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But I've known that I did that trip, and I wanted to transition my career to not rely my income based on, like, television production anymore.
• 39:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And last year was a struggle for me of, like, trying to figure out what's next, trying to set up, you know, where am I going to take my skill sets in my passions, and what am I going to do in addition to what I'm already doing and so I was, you know, last fall I was taking meetings and networking and all that, and nothing was kind of coming up.
• 39:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Even this the beginning of this year, I've been hustling and taking some jobs and some contract work and all that.
• 39:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then, no joke, I had three like in the last.
• 39:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Since I did this retreat, I've had three job offers come my way in jobs that I really am excited about.
• 39:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So it just it is that like, I've had so much trying control and attachment in my career and in, in my life and wanting things to go the way I want them to go.
• 39:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's there's a book that one of my dear friends, Andy shout out to Andy, she made me read before I went on an ayahuasca trip called The Magic of Surrender, which is a very good book.
• 39:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I highly recommend it, but it is the same concept of the world is swirling with so much going on.
• 40:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The more we try and control it.
• 40:05
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The more we're going to cause misery in our lives.
• 40:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Let it happen.
• 40:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then it's how you respond to it versus how you try and control it.
• 40:14
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is also good, and that's that's my good.
• 40:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Before you left a couple weeks where you left us connecting on what you were hoping for and you were you, I remember you telling me you were hoping for this version of this job, and like, that's what your heart set on.
• 40:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I remember thinking like, I wonder if that will change when you do this retreat. Yeah.
• 40:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I think maybe it has evolved maybe a little bit, but I don't know.
• 40:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't know how much that is.
• 40:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And the job thing, what's crazy is, like I would say I'm not attached anymore to like if jobs don't happen that I'm excited about, I don't care anymore like that.
• 40:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: They weren't they weren't there for me. Yes.
• 40:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's different than how I used to be.
• 40:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yes, I used to get so angry. Angry?
• 40:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 40:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I used to get so I just so miserable about it.
• 41:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 41:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And so down on myself that I've worked so hard.
• 41:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I think ayahuasca helped you with some of that.
• 41:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I would also forget to, like, just kind of.
• 41:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, let's just give us a back and forth, you know, just a little bit about ayahuasca.
• 41:14
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And this is, I would say like these ayahuasca in the meditation retreat are very similar, but very different in the sense that I from my this is from my experience because everyone has their own experience, all the lessons somewhat.
• 41:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You could have ten people from that retreat sitting in this spot, and everyone be giving you a different version of what they went through and a different version of what they learned.
• 41:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So this is just my experience, but we all learn those things through learning the same technique, through learning the same form of meditation that helps our individual in ayahuasca is the same way.
• 41:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: What I love about ayahuasca is everybody's drinking that Peruvian root concoction plant medicine, medicine, ayahuasca, and everybody is going to have a totally different experience.
• 42:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But the collective experience in ayahuasca is everyone is healing traumas and blockages in their life. Yes.
• 42:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that is what is beautiful about ayahuasca plant medicine ceremony where you're you're consuming each Oscar.
• 42:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But what I really think the biggest difference here in what I think this meditation retreat was, the missing component on my spiritual healing journeys is ayahuasca comes from a place of, I think, emotion and heart, whereas this is all about the mind.
• 42:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I've never done so much work on the mind.
• 42:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And like working the mind from this retreat was like, whoa, I just flexed a different muscle in my body.
• 42:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Your mind is busy.
• 42:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like, I mean, I have a busy mind too.
• 42:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We are producers.
• 42:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: A producer at its root, yes.
• 42:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Is someone who plans all the time for everything.
• 42:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Their day, their week, their month.
• 42:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I feel like it's my spiritual journey has slowed that down a lot for me.
• 42:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But, But you're also you're an adventurer.
• 42:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's not just about planning something to work.
• 43:02
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're you're planning the next adventure.
• 43:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're planning the next big fun thing.
• 43:05
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're planning to come visit me.
• 43:05
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're planning to travel the world.
• 43:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 43:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So, you know, that's the part where I'm like, I'm so shocked to see you here three days after.
• 43:14
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Because I also was like, I thought maybe you'd be like, in it.
• 43:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You maybe would just be meditating at your house then and, like, slowing down or, you know, I should have known better because you slowed down for ten days.
• 43:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're like, literally, I was a road runner.
• 43:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. Ready to get out?
• 43:33
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Well, that's why I didn't sleep well out there.
• 43:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Okay.
• 43:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I went to bed at nine every night, and I would wake up.
• 43:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And this is, I guess, the sign of being four day.
• 43:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'd wake up to have to pee.
• 43:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 43:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like, could I tried to stop drinking water at 5 p.m.
• 43:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: thinking, like with.
• 43:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Then I would wake up and then I really struggle to go back to bed till four and I did sleep on and off.
• 43:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But honestly, Laura, one of the reasons I was struggling was I was so excited to get back to life and I was so excited and energized and reinvigorated, and I just had so many things going on of like, all the exciting things that are that I want to do, but then also this new found like excitement for what's going to come my way that I don't even expect.
• 44:14
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it was just this like, honestly, excitement to get back into life, into living.
• 44:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I did go into this experience with struggles with my career.
• 44:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I just got out of a relationship at the beginning of the year that emotionally I was going through a really hard time, you know, at the end of last year, at the beginning of this year with someone I really loved and I still have love for and sent so much love to and have the best wishes for.
• 44:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I went through a lot of emotional healing in the first couple months of this year of doing some plant medicine ceremonies and therapy, and thank you.
• 44:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You are an incredible friend.
• 44:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And to all of my friends that were able to be there, how many times if I get excited that I'm the crazy, like I'm getting emotional because that hard experience went that I went through of like of loving someone, but us recognizing it wasn't going to work and we had to separate and all that.
• 45:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I had so many incredible, beautiful family and friends that stepped up for me in a way that just showed me how loved I am, and it was so beautiful.
• 45:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But it was it wasn't enough for me to truly kind of like, move on to the next step of moving on.
• 45:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This helped me because you had to heal yourself.
• 45:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yes, yes, this experience is it got me ready to move on.
• 45:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And in that, like in in for my next relationship or not even my next relationship to even just like put myself out there again for dating in relationship.
• 45:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So let's get granular about that for one moment.
• 45:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you know, you're saying the so in this meditation you're focusing on you know, your upper lip.
• 45:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 45:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But then obviously you're not really focusing on your upper lip for 11 hours.
• 45:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So as you're focusing on it, thoughts come from yes.
• 46:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And you're recognizing them.
• 46:05
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Maybe you're working through them a little bit in your head.
• 46:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, you say you're just kind of letting this is where you start to try and be the observer.
• 46:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're observing.
• 46:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The thoughts come up and try not to analyze and go into them, but just observe.
• 46:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And there are three things that really three genres that really came up for me and thoughts that came up one career stuff, two relationship stuff, and three the TV show traders.
• 46:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I could not get it out of my head.
• 46:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I could not get traders.
• 46:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I was the show, so I don't even watch it.
• 46:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I've never seen. It's basically you.
• 46:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Have you ever played mafia?
• 46:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I mean, with you, I think it's basically like the game of mafia, where there's a group of former reality stars that are playing a game.
• 46:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Three of them are traders, and everybody's trying to figure out who they are, and they're killing each other off and like, it's like a it's a he said, she said detective game of whodunit.
• 47:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Right.
• 47:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But I obviously reality competition shows are such a huge part of my life.
• 47:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Games are a huge part of my life.
• 47:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Survivor was is the inspiration that inspired me to travel the world and create this career of adventure.
• 47:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I, we played how many?
• 47:14
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We played dummy drinking survivor games and, you know, all the games bring people together through games.
• 47:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Games are such a part of my life.
• 47:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But the TV show traders kept coming up in my meditations that I kept thinking of, like I hadn't seen the finale because I went in before the finale and I kept thinking of like moves people are making.
• 47:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I was like, why am I thinking of traders?
• 47:33
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But then I just let myself think of it because I didn't want to control, yeah, what was coming up.
• 47:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So yeah. So career stuff kept coming up.
• 47:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Different aspects of it.
• 47:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: My break up relationship stuff kept coming up, and it wasn't during the meditation that I was processing.
• 47:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I was just letting it come up.
• 47:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then afterwards, at different points in time, I it kind of like just an evolution of processing and seeing things in different perspectives evolved, kind of happened naturally, happened naturally.
• 48:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I didn't force it.
• 48:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I didn't think about it.
• 48:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it just kind of like I now see things in a different perspective in my career, in my last relationship, traders know.
• 48:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Did you watch the finale?
• 48:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I did watch the finale, yeah. What is it?
• 48:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: What you expect? yeah.
• 48:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. So 100% psychically.
• 48:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. It's like that in.
• 48:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Right. So things are unraveling.
• 48:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 48:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So imagine this.
• 48:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I think this is one of the best analogies.
• 48:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Your brain is tying knots all the time.
• 48:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is untying the knots.
• 48:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's like I field.
• 48:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: When I left Laura, I felt like such more clarity in my brain.
• 48:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 48:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I felt like so many knots had been untied in one thing.
• 48:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like, yes, the breath thing.
• 48:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And to kind of go back, I know we, we kind of jumped around, but like the form of meditation, why it took so long to learn is because, like, I'm going to talk out loud, I'm going to close my eyes and kind of go through the process of like the feeling, the senses.
• 49:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So it's like, start with the top of your head and this is what you're like mentally going through.
• 49:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Start with the top of your head and then scan the body.
• 49:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Okay, I'm scanning the body using my brain going down my forehead.
• 49:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: If I feel this sensation, I'm not going to react.
• 49:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: If I have a head, a pounding, I'm just going to go, oh, I observe a pounding pressure in my forehead.
• 49:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, you can sit there a little bit.
• 49:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Okay. Moving down.
• 49:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh, there is a tickle on my eye.
• 49:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm not going to itch that. I'm just observing it.
• 49:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you're scanning the body?
• 49:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh, there's a buzzing sensation on my upper lip.
• 49:33
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: My lips feel like a tingling.
• 49:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then you keep going down.
• 49:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Keep going down.
• 49:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh, there's a there's a twitch in my chest.
• 49:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you're just literally scanning the body, observing all the changing sensations that are constantly happening on your body.
• 49:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But instead of like, oh, I'm going to itch that or, I'm going to twitch it or, oh, I have such a headache.
• 49:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Instead of reacting, you are training your brain on an experiential cellular level to not react.
• 50:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Because when we react, you form aversion and you form cravings of clinging in attachment.
• 50:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So that is how the meditation works, that you're scanning the body, feeling all the different changing sensations that we're not noticing during the day, like not noticing if we are closing.
• 50:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: When I just closed my eyes, I was like, oh yeah, I do feel a little like tingling.
• 50:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And once you start doing that in the retreat, your brain becomes like a dull knife to a sharp knife.
• 50:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You are sharpening your brain by the end of it.
• 50:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You I like and there's other phases of you can keep continue to go on that I didn't get to in this meditation, but like, I could, I could close my eyes and like, if you're really thinking like, what is your brain really thinking about?
• 50:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But then if I'm like, oh, what's the sensation going on in my right glute?
• 50:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, then I can now like take my brain there and feel this sense what's going on there.
• 50:57
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then you really start, you start.
• 50:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Your brain can go to anywhere in your body and feel the sensation and if there's no sensation, this really tripped me up.
• 51:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like, if there were no sensation, I was like, oh damn, there's no sensation.
• 51:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like, that's bad.
• 51:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: No, there's no sensation.
• 51:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You sit and observe and if there's no sensation after a minute, you just move on in that.
• 51:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Which really was hard for me to understand because I was I was like, oh my gosh, I'm not.
• 51:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: In the beginning, I wasn't getting a lot of sensations and I was getting mad at myself.
• 51:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I was mad that as I was scanning my body, I didn't feel anything and my brain was dull.
• 51:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then like at a certain point on day eight, I said to the assistant teacher, I went and I was like, can I just do it out loud for you?
• 51:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Because I, you know.
• 51:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I said, okay, I'm scanning my forehead.
• 51:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't feel anything.
• 51:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then like, I really and then I said I was like, I'm excited to get to my glute because I know there's going to be pain.
• 51:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And he was like, you're doing it wrong.
• 51:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: He was like, that is wrong.
• 51:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're doing it wrong.
• 51:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You should not be looking forward for this sensation.
• 51:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You shouldn't be craving the pain.
• 52:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You shouldn't be craving the sensation.
• 52:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's not about finding the sensation on the body.
• 52:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's about just observing what's already there.
• 52:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That was when it clicked for me.
• 52:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I was doing it wrong the whole time because I was looking for the sensations.
• 52:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I was mad, so when I got to parts of my body that there weren't the sensations.
• 52:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So then when I finally on day eight, went to bed, I was like, Holy shit it.
• 52:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Everyone has a different process and timeline, but it took me till the night of day eight to really understand it.
• 52:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then day nine, I started just scanning my body and letting my brain scan my body and just observing the sensations.
• 52:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then I got it.
• 52:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's that's the form of the meditation.
• 52:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's it.
• 52:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So other thoughts are coming up during that.
• 52:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So it's like it's all happening at once. Yes. Yeah.
• 52:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And you're allowing them and you're letting them just allowing the thoughts to happen.
• 52:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I'm not I'm not analyzing them.
• 52:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm not thinking about them.
• 52:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm just observing them.
• 52:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then the skill set in life is then apply.
• 53:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Then how does this happen in life?
• 53:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like when good things or bad things happen in my life?
• 53:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's not going to be don't react right away.
• 53:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it it's more like objectively assess the situation and objectively like think about it versus having a charged reaction.
• 53:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And one thing I said to him at one of my I, he was I was the person I went and asked the most questions.
• 53:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I signed up every day for interviews and no one shocked.
• 53:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But if I didn't, I would.
• 53:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't know if I would have gotten it correctly right?
• 53:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I needed that right because I'm such an like a you're a student.
• 53:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm a student, right.
• 53:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And so I went, I'll like I said to I was like, I'm confused.
• 53:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like I'm an emotional person.
• 53:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Are you guys telling me to not be emotional?
• 53:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: He was like, no, be emotional and like, allow the emotion to come through you, but don't get attached to it.
• 53:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like you have to allow the emotion like it's okay if you have a broken heart.
• 53:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Angry. Yeah.
• 53:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: If someone passes away, if you get the new job, you're excited to feel those emotions, but don't form attachment to those emotions because the attachment is going to be what will bring misery into your life.
• 54:14
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Because those things will pass.
• 54:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Everything arises and everything passes.
• 54:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So when we attach ourself to anything, it will cause misery in our lives.
• 54:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that is the key lesson for this whole thing.
• 54:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And the biggest, one of the biggest lessons I'm taking away is attachment.
• 54:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Attachment.
• 54:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Attachment is what provides misery and makes us unhappy people.
• 54:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's not to say don't be emotional, it's nonsense.
• 54:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I even said, I want to, I want to, I want to make more money in my career.
• 54:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I want to keep advancing. My career is that bad.
• 54:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And he was like, no, that's a desire.
• 54:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You can have healthy desires, but if you start going at it in an in more away, or if you start becoming obsessed with that, or if you be, you know, in, then that's when you start forming attachment to this outcome, then it's going to cause misery in your life.
• 55:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you mentioned like someone passing away.
• 55:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 55:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Did you did people that have passed away in your life come up? No.
• 55:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was interesting.
• 55:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This was not really in a I cried, I've cried more here than I cried there. So, it's a safe space.
• 55:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: No, I don't have.
• 55:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But it was interesting.
• 55:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I cried twice there.
• 55:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I cried on day six when I had my break time, when I went to my room and I was like, I don't I don't want to bleep.
• 55:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't want to frickin meditate.
• 55:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, right.
• 55:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then this the last meditation I cried because I was so happy I was over it.
• 55:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I also cried because I was like, I, I fucking did the hardest thing of my life and I stuck to it.
• 55:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I wanted to leave many times.
• 55:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I wanted to not meditate many times.
• 55:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I was I literally got to the point where I was like, just like.
• 55:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So my body actually, I had like, and I don't know chemically what happened, but it was this like release, this total release of just like adrenaline of emotion.
• 56:02
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I was like, it's over.
• 56:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Those ten days felt a lot longer than ten days.
• 56:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But then I'm sitting here now and it's like everything comes and goes.
• 56:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And even the simplest lesson I knew this is going to be over eventually.
• 56:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, this is going to be over.
• 56:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's everything will be and it's even like when I was going through my breakup this year, some people would say to me, this is going to be over.
• 56:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It'll come, it'll go in.
• 56:23
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But in the moment, it's so hard to recognize and believe that.
• 56:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, but now I feel like I have a tangible, like ten day experience that I'm like, no matter what difficulty is in my life, it'll be over.
• 56:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like, even think of your accident. You went through.
• 56:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I can't even imagine the pain you went through, you know, and we've talked about it and all that.
• 56:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, but it's like it will pass.
• 56:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's a blip.
• 56:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's a blip. Yeah.
• 56:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's easier said than done in theoretically and intellectually.
• 56:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. I always understood that.
• 57:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But what this meditation retreat did for me is now I actually, on a physical level, understand it.
• 57:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Not intellectually anymore.
• 57:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: There's a difference between experiential learning and intellectual learning that's like travel.
• 57:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You can read about all these countries, you can read about all these cultures.
• 57:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But if you don't actually step foot and go travel to places, you're not going to actually experience it, right?
• 57:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's the same exact thing.
• 57:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So, so past loved ones didn't come up, but did any existential thoughts come up?
• 57:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, I think that's this feels so different than ayahuasca.
• 57:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I love what you said.
• 57:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, I did an ayahuasca journey a year and a half ago or so, and it is really heart opening.
• 57:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's like, oh, everyone is connected.
• 57:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And for me it felt like it was led by people in my life who have died.
• 57:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And, you know, it was honestly really, it was less about me and like, it was not mental at all, actually.
• 57:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So this feels like so, so different from it.
• 57:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But I feel like that, you know, I was sukha for me really kind of hit home on my, my thoughts on what happens when we die, like how we are energetically we're still around.
• 58:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I'm curious the question to ask everyone on the podcast, what do you think happens when we die?
• 58:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh, it's so funny.
• 58:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Over Christmas, the 26th, my one of my best friends, and we've known each other for 25 years.
• 58:23
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We do a Christmas pub crawl every year in Chicago.
• 58:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And and and her her partner Hayley and I were together and we literally asked each other this question.
• 58:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And my answer then was, I think nothing happens.
• 58:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I was like, I think, I think nothing happens.
• 58:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I think it's your answer in December was you don't think anything happened.
• 58:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I literally was like, I just honestly am getting I think I'm at the point where I think, like when you go to sleep, if you don't make up, it's just over.
• 58:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I literally was like, I just think nothing happens.
• 58:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I just think that that's why.
• 58:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I also kind of in my when I answered it, then I was like, but I also think thinking that has given me this like release to, if nothing happens and nothing matters and that means everything matters, because then all, all that matters is what we do in this opportunity.
• 59:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But then I do believe in a bigger sense that we are energy.
• 59:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: All we are is energy and and our energy has to go somewhere.
• 59:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I don't know where or what that is.
• 59:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't.
• 59:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So, you know, I think the, the, the teacher, you know, talked about like past lives and like I've never we've talked about this is what I've never really understood that or gotten into that.
• 59:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't know if I don't know if I really believe in reincarnation.
• 59:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: There is sometimes where I think maybe this is all a game, like obviously it's all a simulation, or maybe it's all a game.
• 59:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then like, we just come back in a different, you know, in a different version, in a different experience, in a different body.
• 59:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And like, So I, I've thought about it. Yeah.
• 59:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But I just haven't gotten to the point where I actually think it's so, actually so fascinating because as a person who's obsessed with games like the, you know, my, my favorite way to describe it is that we're all souls living in a human experience.
• 59:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't know, I say that all the time.
• 59:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's what I believe too.
• 1:00:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The soul is the actual essence of who we are.
• 1:00:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And so body is not this is the vessel is the muscle.
• 1:00:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. Right.
• 1:00:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's where I think like I 100% agree with you that we are souls in a human experience in our body is how we get to feel and experience.
• 1:00:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's why that's why I want to stimulate every sense I can in my body.
• 1:00:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's also why I identify as bisexual sexual level.
• 1:00:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Totally.
• 1:00:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I have gotten to experience every form of stimulation and connect every hole all the that is sexual level. Yes.
• 1:00:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's why it's literally like, I want to live my life stimulating my senses in my body.
• 1:00:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yes, every single way.
• 1:00:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Because that's what I get this the soul gets to experience life as so.
• 1:00:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. So then what happens after?
• 1:00:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't know I that's okay.
• 1:00:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We don't know I know I got I know I'm being aggressive with you because you're my best friend.
• 1:00:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I know I can't be, but I'm just like, you know, it feels like you're saying there's something else.
• 1:01:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I just don't know.
• 1:01:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's where it's like, I don't know.
• 1:01:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's where when people are like, oh, we get reincarnated into a different experience.
• 1:01:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Whereas in the teaching of the course, it's not religious at all.
• 1:01:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But there was part of the lesson.
• 1:01:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: One of the lessons was like, once your soul like you die automatically, you're putting to another, another experience.
• 1:01:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I just have never believed that or thought about that.
• 1:01:23
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And maybe one day I will or I don't know, it's interesting because I'd be curious to hear your thoughts after listening to something like many Lives, many, many Masters or Journey of Souls, I'll take a Journey of Souls is dense.
• 1:01:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: but I think when you just, you start it and you get it, you get the vibe of it.
• 1:01:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I feel like that was an interesting lesson for me to share a journey of a soul.
• 1:01:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, well, you send me these recs and I will, I will, I sure will also link them in the show notes. Yes.
• 1:01:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh my gosh. Okay.
• 1:01:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I mean I feel like there's still so many questions.
• 1:01:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you like what?
• 1:01:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I know we're jumping around, but on day six I feel like I need to know what was it that set you off?
• 1:02:02
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, I think I did six I got to the point where I was, you know, I, I felt like I was in groundhogs day of meditation prison.
• 1:02:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:02:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it was just like you literally do the same thing every day.
• 1:02:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. Ten days.
• 1:02:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it is exhausting.
• 1:02:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It is mentally draining.
• 1:02:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:02:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The most mentally draining thing I've ever done in my life.
• 1:02:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I thought I was going to come out like relaxed and I came out exhausted, mentally wiped out.
• 1:02:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was a mental marathon.
• 1:02:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:02:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And day six and actually day six, I guess.
• 1:02:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: What, you don't know because you're not talking to anybody.
• 1:02:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. You're not sharing your experiences.
• 1:02:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Anyway, day six is the day that most people lose it because you've, you've you've gone four days of the breathing, two days of vipassana training.
• 1:02:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then you realize you have four more days to go.
• 1:02:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it just feels overwhelming.
• 1:02:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And when I got to my room, I, I cried, I got angry, and then I just stopped and I was like, get yourself together.
• 1:03:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're there is no way in hell you're leaving this.
• 1:03:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: There was no never once an ounce of me that thought I would quit.
• 1:03:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But it was like, you're going to do this.
• 1:03:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And if you just keep putting your mind to it.
• 1:03:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that was the moment where I was just kind of continually so many ways, so many different times, realizing I can do anything.
• 1:03:23
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: If I put my mind to anything, it's going to happen and it like it.
• 1:03:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It is the best lesson of like the truth of going again from theoretically knowing that to experientially knowing that.
• 1:03:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like, I really do feel like I can do anything with my mind now.
• 1:03:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And, and I think that the day six moment in, everybody had their own breakdown moments.
• 1:03:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Those moments are important moments, because it's the moments of do you choose to stay or do you choose to go?
• 1:03:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's where by the day ten, when I was looking around those seats, there were about like 15 men that had left out of the, you know, out of the 35 or so.
• 1:04:05
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it was it was the Squid Games.
• 1:04:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Here was the Hunger Games, you know.
• 1:04:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. This is this is so good for you.
• 1:04:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Of course. Like, you're not leaving voluntarily.
• 1:04:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Hell, no. No, you weren't going to do it. So. Okay.
• 1:04:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So then you finally crack the case. Yes.
• 1:04:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: On day nine.
• 1:04:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then day nine, you are in the zone all day.
• 1:04:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Did it feel good? No.
• 1:04:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was still feel taxing? No.
• 1:04:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, it always does.
• 1:04:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Even like I met it. Now it's.
• 1:04:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: They recommend afterwards that you meditate an hour in the morning.
• 1:04:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: In an hour at night to continue the practice.
• 1:04:33
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm so far just doing an hour in the morning.
• 1:04:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: and I've done it so far every day.
• 1:04:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And even today I did the hour in the morning.
• 1:04:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I now understand, I think, why people go back like.
• 1:04:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And people do it again, because I can already feel like my brain has is way less sharp than it was when I was there, you know, and it still was a healthy practice of going through the senses on my body for an hour.
• 1:04:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But I was distracted.
• 1:04:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I was thinking if I was more distracted this morning and I'm only three days out, oh, I'm sure you heard my kids like, no, I didn't it, I just smelled that yummy bacon.
• 1:05:02
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I just it did good bacon, but I, I was distracted, you know, and I can already see like when you're not doing it 11 hours a day, it's it takes on a different form, but it's still going to be a practice that I go to the gym an hour and a half, you know, five days a week.
• 1:05:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I need to do this an hour a day.
• 1:05:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is the gym for my mind.
• 1:05:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I put so many hours of my life into my body at the gym that now I'm doing it for my mind.
• 1:05:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I was also wondering because you literally jumped into this silent retreat after all of your thirst trap photos, if you like.
• 1:05:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'd been so ripped on your Instagram and you're like ripped away Instagram that I'm like, okay, yeah, you're going to go to a silent retreat where you can't work out. Yeah.
• 1:05:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're not eating any any like animal protein.
• 1:05:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: By the way, I brought a whole big tub of, whey protein powder.
• 1:05:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Are you allowed to?
• 1:05:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I asked them if they could.
• 1:05:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I had I had a I was doing two scoops in the morning and.
• 1:05:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh that's great.
• 1:06:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:06:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I was doing some stretches and some bodyweight workouts.
• 1:06:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh, you were allowed to do that.
• 1:06:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't know if you were allowed to, but I did. You did it in your room.
• 1:06:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I did it because I also realized like when I don't move my body.
• 1:06:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:06:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I you can't mentally like movement for me is so important for sure in an active part of my life.
• 1:06:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But I wasn't working out with weights.
• 1:06:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I wasn't doing yoga like you're not.
• 1:06:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I don't want you doing yoga or anything.
• 1:06:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I did like stretches. Yeah, and like a few light body weight.
• 1:06:23
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, I know yoga, I think.
• 1:06:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I think they don't.
• 1:06:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: One thing is going into it and I'm glad that I didn't have meditative practice is going into it is they really stress don't mix practices.
• 1:06:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Interesting.
• 1:06:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yoga is partially a meditative practice, so they don't want you mixing any other meditative practices, which I think maybe yoga would, maybe, I don't know, trigger or anything or something, but it's they really want you.
• 1:06:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is a specific technique and they want you to learn this technique specifically.
• 1:06:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Interesting.
• 1:06:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:06:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, and it rewired my brain like rewired my brain.
• 1:06:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So let's talk about takeaways because we're already oh my gosh.
• 1:07:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's already like an hour to get a cut on out I can't I can't there's nothing to cut out.
• 1:07:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But tell me okay.
• 1:07:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So like so you're you're you're stepping away from it.
• 1:07:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And let's talk about what how how did it change you.
• 1:07:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:07:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So many takeaways I think the biggest one that we mentioned I talked about earlier was this, this recognizing that self-doubt has been a block in my life.
• 1:07:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I'm going to like work on not doubting myself anymore.
• 1:07:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. And I think that that is huge, huge.
• 1:07:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, that's what I'm always like letting go of like not to make this about me, but no, I know we even though we were talking about last night and I didn't want to, I almost was going to share this last night, but I didn't.
• 1:07:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And so hard for us because I wanted to share, you know, for the first time on the podcast.
• 1:07:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But even so, many of us just doubt ourselves.
• 1:07:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yes. And we are own worst enemies.
• 1:07:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: For what reason? There's no reason.
• 1:07:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, there's this is this is conditioning for us, though.
• 1:07:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And this is conditioning me, you and I have been having the same conversation for like 18 years.
• 1:08:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I mean, coming up in production together, we would it's the highs are high and the lows are low.
• 1:08:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:08:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We would be on the red carpet at the Oscars together.
• 1:08:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:08:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And then because of the nature of this work, the day after the Oscars, we're unemployed.
• 1:08:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're unemployed because you just did a whole gig out of award season.
• 1:08:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You're unemployed now.
• 1:08:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You think it fired you?
• 1:08:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Just like the show's over.
• 1:08:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, the show's over. Yeah. So now.
• 1:08:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And we would be like, you know, we'd sleep for a day, and then we'd wake up the next day would be like, we have.
• 1:08:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Our self-worth is gone.
• 1:08:33
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Our self-worth is no longer right because we don't have a job and we're not the Oscars. Who are we? Yes.
• 1:08:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Who are we?
• 1:08:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Without that, our identity has so long has been wrapped up in our work.
• 1:08:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Because you're right. You said this.
• 1:08:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You said this last night.
• 1:08:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I love what you said about why you love LA.
• 1:08:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, because I love.
• 1:08:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: What I realized is I LA in every way, shape or form attracts dreamers and whether you're dreaming of living in Southern California for the weather, or whether you're going there to be an actor or going there for a television career, everyone in our orbits in LA are dreamers, are passionate dreamers who a lot of those people are creative, passionate dreamers.
• 1:09:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So are two of them are sitting on this couch.
• 1:09:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Two of them are sitting in this couch, which, by the way, we like you talked about we took a night of not a vacation.
• 1:09:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We went to Southeast Asia and shot a web series on our own.
• 1:09:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We are sitting you are doing this on your own.
• 1:09:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's what I'm so proud of you is what do we continue to do?
• 1:09:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Is create and produce. Yeah.
• 1:09:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's who we are.
• 1:09:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's incredible to be around that energy in my friends, my family in L.A., my deep rooted connections in LA are all people pursuing dreams in that to be the connective thread that brings us together and is our LA family and is are beautiful.
• 1:09:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It is beautiful because it is such a highly charged, positive, energetic connection.
• 1:09:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Totally.
• 1:09:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: and yet with all of that highly charged positive connection, we still doubt ourselves. Yes.
• 1:10:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Well, and it's by the way, and I like I it's one of the hardest industries in the world. Of course, you know.
• 1:10:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's where it is.
• 1:10:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like we were all these dreamers going out to one of the most competitive, hardest.
• 1:10:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And here's the other thing.
• 1:10:17
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Like sometimes toxic.
• 1:10:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Toxic. Yeah.
• 1:10:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: In in LA like what's the flip side of LA.
• 1:10:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The amount of status is like that's one thing I get down on a lot of is, is status and money and all that.
• 1:10:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, there's a huge part of that that goes along with it.
• 1:10:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, that goes along everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Right.
• 1:10:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, everywhere. so it is.
• 1:10:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That I think that the self-doubt was a huge.
• 1:10:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. And a takeaway.
• 1:10:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I think another huge takeaway is now this skill that I have, this meditative skill that I didn't have.
• 1:10:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I think the other biggest thing is this really grasping at the idea of attachment and how to recognize attachment.
• 1:10:57
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And this is not a flip of a switch.
• 1:10:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I didn't come out and like, I'm a new person, I'm and it's, it's I now can recognize things and I see things in different perspectives that I didn't have before.
• 1:11:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And even the teacher said, if you're presented with the same situation ten times that you would have reacted to.
• 1:11:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And now because of this course, you one out of ten times react differently, then it's been a success because that one time is an improvement and you have to work on continuing to improve.
• 1:11:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And in the whole courses, this is just the first step.
• 1:11:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is the beginning.
• 1:11:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is something you need to constantly be working.
• 1:11:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Now you have to integrate.
• 1:11:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yes, integration.
• 1:11:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I mean we've talked about ayahuasca post post ayahuasca integration is a real hard because you are like in a hard space that's not at all connected to reality.
• 1:11:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's like very, very spiritual.
• 1:11:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:11:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This feels like you have now mentally. You disabled though a lot of the thing a lot of the noise. Yes.
• 1:12:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And to keep that noise at bay because we are bombarded all the time, all the time.
• 1:12:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I would say this is the like we were taught the mental version of ayahuasca.
• 1:12:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I'm actually going to Peru to yes, yes, tell everyone I'm leading a small group trip to Peru.
• 1:12:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I went on my trip around the world.
• 1:12:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I went to an ayahuasca center.
• 1:12:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I wanted to go to a rustic, authentic Peruvian ayahuasca center, and I went to one and I a really positive, a gentle, beautiful ayahuasca experience.
• 1:12:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And while I was there, I thought I would love to bring people here who are inspired to do ayahuasca, but wouldn't want to go on their own, so I could hopefully be that person to help them come.
• 1:12:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I'm leading a trip, and what I'm excited about is now to be able to use this meditative practice in my ceremonies to further drop into the ayahuasca experience, because my issue with ayahuasca is I have a very controlling mind, and I, I've done ayahuasca three different occasions and I got great benefits out of it, but I don't think I've ever fully dropped into the full ayahuasca experience because I haven't been able to fully suck up during like, yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So now I'm hoping that with this practice, that combining this ability to mentally, oh my gosh, try and you know, surrender that then the ayahuasca experience will also be profound as well.
• 1:13:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Well this is perfect because when you get back from that trip, yes we can do another podcast or you can talk about I think the fans should tell Laura to do what she can to come and do an on location will report.
• 1:13:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I mean, what I will say is I do plan to do that.
• 1:13:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I know in November.
• 1:13:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I know you should you should do like. Yeah.
• 1:13:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yes. Documenting your.
• 1:13:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yes we that I am I did ayahuasca you know.
• 1:13:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah a year and a half ago or so.
• 1:13:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But I'm going to do it again.
• 1:13:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. In November with my friend Marnie.
• 1:13:57
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I plan to plan to bring you with me.
• 1:14:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I love that.
• 1:14:02
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I know it's such a wonderful.
• 1:14:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's such a beautiful experience. So good.
• 1:14:05
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But I still think it's worth, talking about, like, the one on one of it all.
• 1:14:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And, you know, because it is so transformational and people have so many questions about it.
• 1:14:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh. What?
• 1:14:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Ayahuasca. Yeah.
• 1:14:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Okay. Yes. I mean, not right now.
• 1:14:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's like, oh my god. Yeah. We don't have time.
• 1:14:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We're already over time.
• 1:14:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Are you kidding me?
• 1:14:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We don't have time.
• 1:14:23
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: you were there, while you were silent.
• 1:14:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Maybe, you know this.
• 1:14:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was a lunar eclipse. Okay.
• 1:14:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So we I did not know that, but we did see.
• 1:14:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Did you see it? Did you were you outside?
• 1:14:33
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Were you inside?
• 1:14:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: No. We saw the full moon. Yeah.
• 1:14:35
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it was beautiful.
• 1:14:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: The full moon.
• 1:14:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was like an a lunar eclipse.
• 1:14:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So that means the sun was directly behind the moon.
• 1:14:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh, we were.
• 1:14:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: There was a night where when I walked out the full moon, there was a huge, like, halo and ring around the.
• 1:14:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's the lunar.
• 1:14:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh, I saw it and didn't even realize it. Yeah.
• 1:14:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
• 1:14:55
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. I didn't even realize it.
• 1:14:57
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So I did see it and I didn't even know that's why.
• 1:14:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. So I was.
• 1:15:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you did get outside and you like looked at the stars.
• 1:15:02
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh. So yeah. And let's say so my location was in outside of Joshua Tree.
• 1:15:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: There was a walking path that you could go on.
• 1:15:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So like during your breaks, the rest periods, you could walk in nature, you could walk around the property.
• 1:15:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It wasn't a prison in the sense of like you were in your room and in the.
• 1:15:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah. Did you not?
• 1:15:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But there was it was a beautiful setting and it was I would go walk around this path and, and stop at different points and contemplate what I was thinking.
• 1:15:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And there was the moment about when I had this self-doubt realization.
• 1:15:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I started at the the start of the path, and I picked different areas of my life, and I reflected on the doubt I had in that area of my life.
• 1:15:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I took a walk around the path, and then I recognized how I was going to let go of that doubt, and then took another walk around the path, and it was just like a beautiful moment to have that path as like a reflective point.
• 1:15:51
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh that's amazing.
• 1:15:53
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I love that as a letting go of letting go is a shedding.
• 1:15:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And I didn't even realize the lunar.
• 1:15:57
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was a shedding, I love it.
• 1:15:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Oh my gosh.
• 1:16:00
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: so last question and then we'll wrap this up. But in your day to day, I mean obviously you're going to wake up in the morning and meditate. Yes.
• 1:16:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So you're waking up in the morning and you're meditating.
• 1:16:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: What else in your day to day are you taking away from this?
• 1:16:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I think that, if I recognize my brain is going too crazy or I'm stressed, I can I can meditate and you can do it anywhere, anytime.
• 1:16:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And so it is it is a skill that I, I'm glad that I now have, that I can kind of calm the brain down and try and untie some knots in the brain and all of that.
• 1:16:40
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But beyond that, I think the biggest take away in my day to day is like to not react so quickly to things and to really try and observe things from a more, you know, non-reactive perspective, and to not try and attach to outcomes.
• 1:17:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And, and it's, it sounds I know it sounds repetitive, but it is that is, that's the like kind of needs to be repetitive and you really grasp it because it is such a huge concept.
• 1:17:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Well you know what's interesting too I think that I've already started realizing and it's been interesting to see how people respond to this experience.
• 1:17:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I've got.
• 1:17:20
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yes. What what have you that's been really interested about it.
• 1:17:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And, and then who's also been kind of the eye roll about it.
• 1:17:28
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's interesting the people who are the I role about it, I would say the people that I would recognize in my life that are holding on to the most misery.
• 1:17:36
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And so and it just kind of that cynical perspective versus the like, glass half full versus empty type thing.
• 1:17:44
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it is really I feel like the people that I have been gravitating towards, wanting to know more and learning more, are the people that I think have more of a general positive outlook on life.
• 1:17:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And not to say that everything is roses in perfect, but just that more like positive energy.
• 1:17:59
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And the people that I've noticed that are kind of like judgmental about it, or are the ones that have more of that pessimistic energy.
• 1:18:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: That's so interesting. Yeah.
• 1:18:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: You know, the first time I ever heard about a ten day silent retreat, I was a production assistant for the Daily Ten.
• 1:18:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Maybe I was an AP by then.
• 1:18:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And Debbie Matt, novelist, left it.
• 1:18:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: She did it.
• 1:18:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: She I mean, this was whatever under what year is that?
• 1:18:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: 2008 or 2009. Yeah. Remember she was gone.
• 1:18:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: She was like away not filming with us for a couple weeks because of it.
• 1:18:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And all of us were like, what the actual f is she doing?
• 1:18:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: She's going to be silent for ten days.
• 1:18:38
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:18:41
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was such a foreign concept.
• 1:18:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It was so wild to think about.
• 1:18:45
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And now I feel like it's such a throwaway line.
• 1:18:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's a throwaway line in spirituality, which I it's I love it to it because it's like it's such a big deal to be silent for ten days, but it's like, oh, you don't need to go on a ten day silent retreat to whatever, or you don't need to do this intending to retreat because like the ten day silent retreat feels so aggressive and scary. Yes.
• 1:19:07
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And foreign. Yes.
• 1:19:08
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And you gotta talk.
• 1:19:10
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: People can't be off the phone for an hour.
• 1:19:12
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: They'd be off their phones for ten days.
• 1:19:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: They're not going to talk to anybody that I could communicate with them.
• 1:19:16
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And so yeah, I mean, it's just it's such a wild concept and but this is, you know, the constant is that you're coming back.
• 1:19:24
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And our friends who went, you know, it's coming back saying it was transformative.
• 1:19:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's I mean, I am so blessed that I have lived a beautiful life of adventure and travel and experiences.
• 1:19:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: All like I do in this life is try and live experience to experience and experience.
• 1:19:43
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that is what my purpose and then to try and inspire people to do that.
• 1:19:47
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And in so many ways.
• 1:19:49
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And what I'm just saying is I have lived so many incredible experiences.
• 1:19:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is at the top of the list, and it is one of the hardest things I've ever done, because I do think this experience is unlike anything I've ever done in my life.
• 1:20:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I loved I could go and have a travel experience every every day of the week right?
• 1:20:11
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Travel experiences are going to be similar in some way, shape or form.
• 1:20:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's new stimulation, it's new people, it's new culture, it's new connections.
• 1:20:18
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's all that.
• 1:20:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This is unlike anything I have ever done in my life in 40 years.
• 1:20:25
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it is something where if you have an inkling that this might be something for you, explore it.
• 1:20:31
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Hit me up, you know, and check out the website DHEA amazement. Org.
• 1:20:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It has all this centers around the world and it has how you can sign up.
• 1:20:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It's free, it's free, it's free, it's free.
• 1:20:46
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's the one of the hardest challenges that no matter what, if you get through it, you will come out, have grown in some way, shape or form.
• 1:20:56
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It might not be anything that I'm talking about, but it's going to be whatever you need.
• 1:21:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's what's beautiful about ayahuasca.
• 1:21:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Everyone gets out of ayahuasca and this retreat, what they need out of it, because we're all living infinitely different human experiences.
• 1:21:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I, I have an identical twin brother.
• 1:21:15
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: What I find so fascinating now is we're identical twins physically, while we are living, such different realities are lives are completely different.
• 1:21:26
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And it's because we are building different life experiences.
• 1:21:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So all of if he were to go on this retreat, he would get a completely different takeaway because it's going to go into your mind, your experiences and help you get what you need out of it.
• 1:21:42
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So that's kind of how I would say if you're interested or have any questions, look into it.
• 1:21:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, it it might be hard.
• 1:21:50
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It is going to be it might not it might be.
• 1:21:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It will be hard. Yeah.
• 1:21:54
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: But what are the times in our lives that we grow the most when we go through hard times and come out of it on the other side, maybe, you know, from your accident?
• 1:22:03
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Or do we know anyone knows who's lost a loved one?
• 1:22:06
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Anyone knows who's been through a heartbreak that broke their heart?
• 1:22:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah.
• 1:22:09
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: All these moments that we go through that are the hardest are the ones that actually build character and make us grow in a way that we become stronger and more resilient.
• 1:22:19
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And that's what this experience is all about.
• 1:22:21
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Whew.
• 1:22:22
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And on that note, Justin Walter, your bucket list guide.
• 1:22:27
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Yeah, on Instagram.
• 1:22:29
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Thank you so much.
• 1:22:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Thank you.
• 1:22:30
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I love you so much I love you.
• 1:22:32
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: This has been awesome.
• 1:22:33
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I'm glad I came.
• 1:22:34
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: I cannot believe you're sitting still.
• 1:22:37
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: We have a whole day together now.
• 1:22:39
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: And now we don't have to monitor what we're talking about. So, So are you thinking about doing a ten day salary retreat?
• 1:22:48
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Let me know And if you have any questions, definitely reach out to Justin.
• 1:22:52
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: never miss an episode of the Woo report by joining the community at the Woo Report podcast.com.
• 1:22:58
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Thank you for sharing, reading, following and subscribing.
• 1:23:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Even on YouTube.
• 1:23:01
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: It makes a huge difference.
• 1:23:04
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: So grateful you're here by.
• 1:23:13
  Well, there's a gong that goes off at 4: Good work.