Is Meekness An Illusion For Power with Aaron Trembath

 Sit back and enjoy this beautiful conversation I had with Aaron Trembath. We met at a recent retreat and I loved our conversations and the depth we were able to go to. Aaron has a wealth of knowledge in many things but one in particular, philosophy, that is greatly insightful.

In today's episode Aaron shares that he became his  own abuser as he held the religious gun to his head. A truly profound analogy that I think many people can relate to.  Aaron shares his journey through religion and how he felt the religion left him.
Religion is not spirituality.

Talking about magic faith and the idea of a truth first perspective. As Aaron shares, every philosophy is going to have a bubble in the fly paper. Underneath it all there is something you have to swallow. Because of this, he started pursing truth for the sake of truth and his journey that unfolded is quite beautiful.

Aaron shares that as he taught gospel doctrine it became more and more clear to him that the church was going away from the divine love principle that Jesus taught. As his relationship with the divine started to change, so did his relationship with the religion.

We touch on Buddhism, shintoism, the void and more. You will want to join us in the conversation.

Are you wanting to attend one of Aaron's classes? Connect with Aaron through his email: aaron.michael.trembath@gmail.com

Links:
https://www.amandajoyloveland.com/activation

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Transcript

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When you were leaving religion, did you ever feel like your religion was leaving you? Well, my next guest talks about this. And it's quite profound what he shares his his insights, and then also along with his knowledge, of philosophy and some really beautiful truths that he has come to learn. But before we dive into this interview, I want to share that I have received in a meditation one morning, I was asking some deep questions for myself, and I was shown a really beautiful activation. And especially when we step out of religion, and we're trying to navigate these places within us of where do I go? Now? What's my intuition? How can I trust myself? How do I access or even tap into this new version of God, I was shown an activation to tap in and activate the inner guru. And a guru is someone that turns you to back to yourself. And this is something that every single one of us has access to. And I'm excited to announce that I am doing a webinar on October 30, at 10am Mountain Standard Time. And this is going to be a really beautiful call that will walk through any resistance blocks that you may be currently having well clear that will activate this inner guru will talk, we'll go through a guided journey that where I will assist you in activating this and then we will move through ways in which you can utilize this and start working with this on a day to day basis. And then I have a few really beautiful things after that, that I'll share with you as well. But this will be a really powerful call to really assist you and tapping into that space inside of you that knows all the answer that had that strong intuition that is more strongly guided to what your soul is desiring and wanting in this life. Head over to my website, Amanda joy loveland.com Ford slash activation to get registered today. Now without further ado, let's dive into this really beautiful conversation I got to have with Aaron trumba. Well, I am so excited to be sitting down today with Aaron trumba. Good thing I know how to pronounce that now. I would have totally butchered it. That's all right. Yeah, most people do. I do sometimes. Yeah, you do. Yeah. I've noticed. So since I lived in Australia, I heard a lot of trim off, like old trim off or trim bar or whatever. And I'm like, I was supposed to be sad because my name is like British. And so I don't know, it's been every once in a while. I'll fumble it. Yeah, my own name. That's funny. Well, you're like today, I might feel like I'm a trim boss or trim bath. You know, sometimes I'm just overly aware of the people I'm talking to. And I just got to not do that. So well, I am so happy that you said yes to this. You and I got to spend some time at a recent retreat down in Zions and the more I got to know you. It's like, Oh, you are fun. I would love to have you on my podcast. Yeah, it was a real treat. What a beautiful retreat. It was. Yeah, it was very, very unique for sure. And as they always are. But I what I love is that I know a little tiny bit of your story, but I don't know very much of your story. But some of the little antics that you were communicating. I'm like, Oh, you please come be on the podcast, of course. And here we are. It's been I'm really excited. I'm excited. So tell me a little bit about your background. And did you were you born and raised in the Mormon church? Yes, that's right. So both of my parents were converts to the church. They joined in their teen years. I'm pretty sure both of them. My father, his parents, my grandparents joined the church when they were young parents, I guess so my dad, that was really one of the main reasons as I understand it, that they joined the church. They've gone through some really deep like trauma. They lost a child like really gruesome accident as a farming accident, really, and then a car accident afterwards. So they lost a child in the cracks are in the same. So so as a farming accident attractor tipped over on the kid, okay. He was like, like five, I think. Yeah. And they were he was, you know, he's still alive. And they were taking him to the hospital. And then they had a wreck. Are you kidding? Could you not Wow, in that wreck, one of the neighboring kids like down the road. 17 year old kids, I like to kind of prank people by pulling out in front of them on the dirt roads. And my granddad was going way too fast. And because he's trying to save his son. Yeah. So the guy pulls out in front of him and he gets T bone. So I think one of them was paralyzed. One of the teenagers, holy cow, and then one of them was killed. And then and then my uncle, six year old at the time was killed. And so there's this really deep family trauma. That even though it's not really resolved, yeah, I can, I can feel that. I'm gonna pause you for a second. We're gonna just move it and noise. Oh, damn, Okay, that's better. Beautiful. But yeah, I can imagine that. Yeah, I was really dramatic. And so as a result of that, like my grandparents were, I mean, they're my granddad. They've done a bunch of different work, but they had a homestead in Wyoming. And my grandpa was just kind of always work is their identity really? Like constant work? And if they were they farmers. Yeah, that makes and the farming was their goal. It wasn't like their farmers because they had to be. My granddad worked on the railroad so he could be a farmer. That's crazy. That is interesting. Such a different mentality. Yeah. Well, it's a generation. It's a generational gap. Right. So, but for him, this was his dream. And I, you know, I appreciate the dream is beautiful, right. But anyway, so they they go through this, you know, serious trauma. My father, like, literally crushed his brother to death in this car wreck, right, like trying to save him. Yeah. And everyone blames themselves and has slight resentment for each other. And that's just, that's a really nasty thing. And everybody's kind of wrestling with it. And in this moment of like, you know, loss of the Son, this child that they love. Sometime later, they, you know, were introduced to the church, the Mormon church, and join the church. I'm sure the eternal family piece was big. It was very big and still is. Yeah. And so all of them, I'm pretty sure except one are like, all except two are super active. I have two, two aunts that have kind of made their own choices and stepped away. Well, not to say that the ones that have stayed haven't made their choices. They've chosen it. Yeah. It's just seems like a safer choice. Right to stay. So anyway, that's kind of my backstory. I, I was born into the church. My dad was attending BYU law school when I was young. I think I was, I was born when I was born in Provo. Oh my gosh, I can't believe this is my public. I was born. I was born. out there. I was born in Utah. Oh, I haven't. I'm not a Utah person. But I was born in Utah. While my dad was attending BYU. Yeah, it was a civil engineer. That's where I met my mom. There. They had four kids in the first batch. And then, and then divorced when I was like, 12. But yeah, so that's my backstory, I was in the church from my entire life. I served a mission. I was a very good missionary, very obedient, but also very, in free thinking. And so I think, you know, people are like, Oh, when did you leave the church, when you're, when you're apostasy, or whatever. And I think mine is really, I don't know that I left the church as much as the church left me. And my understanding of spirituality in general was that it's radically personal. Yeah. And I think that's the doctrine of the Church to like, even though people in the church might not acknowledge it. There's no one gets into your interior space. Nobody, nobody can see. Like the heart of you. Yeah. And so whatever your relationship with the divine is, is so radically personal, that you can't put a label on it, you know, you can't say, oh, this is you're not spiritual enough, or your relationship with God is incomplete. Because it's not yours to talk about, it's mine. And so I had this really kind of radical view of religion as it being like, like a function of spirituality, and not the other way around. And so on my mission, you know, I'd speak to people about what I perceive to be the truth of the of the gospel, which is like, you know, be good to people love people. And then these other things were just like, all the covenants and things that you talk about, are just things you do because of it. Yeah. And so for me, that's what it was. That the love was the was the essence of it. And so, I was accused by a lot of people who had left the church that I met with, right, but the less actives that, that I was, like some kind of new age Mormon, they're like, Oh, you're the next thing. If the Church has an army of you, it's gonna be great. Because I wasn't the rigid, hyper aggressive, even though I was raised that way. I really was. I was raised, like, you are obedient to the letter. I was obedient. But I was obedient, because I chose it. Right. It was like my gift. And it was something I willingly gave. So, so yeah, my, I guess my personal apostasy really started on my mission. Where I saw people in the church just being like, beautiful and loving, and also really irreverent. Like my first branch President greeted me with this like, he's a huge dude. President Stewart he's massive like I'm a big guy, right? So those of you can't see me. But six two and like right now I'm like 200 pounds I was I was shocked that you were gonna say I wish you wait. I'm like, Man, this is so different guys just been like yeah, I'm this women are like, I'm not telling you. But I'm if you're watching this from home, I'm a big dude. And this guy dwarfed me and he had like hands it was like shaking up Christmas ham. So big, and he greets me He's like, elder Trembath. How the hell are you? He says, and I'm like, What is he? Like you said, Hell, he said hell and he didn't say it as if the geography, I don't understand, right. And so for me, I saw this giant, this spiritual giant and physical, but mostly spiritual giant. And that was a beautiful experience. And he was so irreverent, you know? And so it's like, okay, so that's obviously not the gospel cussing is not important, right? Because this is a beautiful person, that cusses like a sailor, right? So I'm like, that's gotta be a shift. And so I start going through shifts, I went on my mission a little bit late. I wanted people to give up on me first, if that makes sense. I want it to be for me and not for them. Yeah. And so yeah, I went out and served. And for me, it was like, it was my gift to God. Right. So then, when it got really hard, it was like, okay, yeah, it's hard. This sucks. But I am, you know, it's my, I viewed it at the time as my tithing of my life, right. So a 10th of my life to that point. And I was willingly giving it. So the obedient part wasn't difficult at all. I was able to be perfectly obedient. But the real, the real trick came in, like, when it started to be not about love. Right? If it wasn't about loving the people you were serving, but about teaching more lessons and attracting more hours and whatever I was when I started really struggle with it as like, now that's not the point here. Like I get it, those are practices. But the goal should be love. Yeah. So. So anyway, I started to develop Buddhist tendencies on my mission. Did you know that they were Buddhist centered? Yeah. I think so. So I studied a lot of I studied a lot, period. So your whole life you've been? You're quite educated now. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yes, I am. Yeah, I'm, I'm quite, I suppose. educated, but I love it. I love learning. And so to me, that's kind of the point. So I really dug into religion in general. Like, I wanted to know the world religions, like, how do you wrap your head around? Shintoism? Right. Like, as somebody raised Christian, that very notion was just so radically different. But then if you're speaking to someone from Shintoism, really helps to have a foundation of like, what language they like, how do you communicate? For those that don't know what Shintoism includes? Including me? What is it? So it's an idea of like, not God, like, oh, so it's not agnostic? No, or atheist? It is a full man, I don't want to get in trouble here. Why? Because I'm about I'm not a Shinto last, right. All I've done is like, read a little bit about it to get like a foundation, right? So anytime you're dealing with Eastern religions, let's go like Eastern religions writ large. You start to get away from the idea of a knowable deity, right? God, right, this notion of God, being white male, single white, like a white dude with a beard floating in the sky covered in light made of light that thing that that entity is not even a thing. So like my aunt, my answer permission in Japan, and she, she came back talking about this time during Christmas, because what is Christmas? If there's no Christ, were in I think it was supposed or they had a, one of the malls had a Christmas display. And there's a crucifix put up, which is, you know, whatever. It's the thing about Christmas. But there was a Santa Claus on the cross. Oh, crucified Santa, because they don't understand like, there's no foundation. Yeah, what the difference is interesting. So Eastern religion proper is more about spirituality. And it's less about one individual, like, this is obedience to God. So you have like, all these different, it's more like philosophy, really? So how do you talk to somebody about God when there is no God to them? Right. And so that was tricky. And I needed to understand that a little bit. So Shintoism Buddhism, a lot of the Eastern religions were larger, like, they wrestle with the notion of spirituality without, sometimes even without a sense of the individual. Right? Like that the individual me, is an illusion. And then anytime I try to speak about it, I'm only reinforcing that illusion. And so the whole idea behind again, I'm kind of a baby in the world of Buddhism. I don't know much about it. I'm only saying this for you, Alan, if you're listening, my buddy is a Buddhist getting his doctorate right now in comparative philosophies comparing de luz and Nagarjuna, this ancient Buddhist philosophy Anyway, well, for most of the population, we don't know much about most religions. So Mormons that are listening or expos or whatever you are, however you identify Christian Christians in general Buddhism itself the the notion is that like, the purpose of life, if such as it is, is to get rid of suffering, to minimize, reduce, and then ultimately remove suffering. And there's this like wheel of like karma, we talked about karma, I don't really understand what it means we talked about karma, this karmic wheel, the wheel of samsara is where we're all of our endeavor, like the US, the essence of us, links in and then gets this false idea of individuality. Like, for some reason, there's a me all the sudden, right, even though the thing that is real, isn't me, but it's us, right? It's this unified sense of everyone. That's why like, you know, Buddhism makes me one with the universe. That's the point is that the universe itself, is the essence of what is real and true. And whenever we separate ourselves from it, the very notion of ourselves, right necessitates the separate pneus. Right? If I say, not, me and me, all of a sudden, there's a line drawn? Yeah, right. And the way that Western thought has developed, I think pretty much going all the way back to the ancient Greeks, and even the pre Socratics, you get into pre Socratics. before Socrates, you get into this notion of like, there is a thing, there's a soul and individual. And that individual, for some reason is important. And this is just ego, right? This is this notion of the self, but but the Buddhists would say, No, that's all illusory. Everything that you're talking about. All these words that we are using right now, is just reinforcing this notion of self that's artificial. And all of your suffering comes from this notion of self, and attachment to it. And well, and it's such an interesting concept, because it when you when you scale back, and you look at each religion and the motivation behind the the religions, right? If you are practicing Buddhism, and you are going under that notion that we that I don't have the self, then every choice that I make is more for the all instead of the one. And in that sense, there would be less suffering, there would be more of a conscious environment that we're more united. And there's a lot of beauty in that. And we know that there's nine grams, that leaves the body when it dies, and there is some beauty, this is a total tangent. But when I do plant medicine, one of the things that I really resist is going to the void. I don't like that feeling. And if you don't know what the Void is, the Void is like the nothingness where everything exists, and nothing exists. And so it is like this dismantling of the soul, where you become nothing and all things. And it is the most bizarre, and some people love this feeling. I personally do not write, I like having my unique nests, that my unique signature of, you know, I'm here to do some things on this earth. And nothing I do matters. Like, there's that part that I understand that it is for the self, but it is fascinating. You know, you think of that meditation that has a Buddha that had done work around the flower, and only one person had gotten it. And it is when you connect into the idea that we're connected to all things, right. I think you make different choices. So the Buddhist would say, Cool, enjoy it, live your life, you'll be reincarnated and have another life to do it again. Yeah. And so the point of the Buddha's life is ultimately, to alleviate suffering. And that suffering, the underlying premise is that suffering comes from attachment, and your attachment to yourself. That's good, that's gonna cause suffering. Like if I pull away what you perceive to be yourself, all of a sudden you resist it, you're like, Oh, this is in there suffering attached to it. But if you can become unattached to the self, and say, yeah, there's, my lived experiences this and it's pretty dope, and I'm just gonna roll with it. And then I'll do it again, then I'll do it again. Until I don't, right. And that's kind of the point is like you, you get to the stage where there is no attachment, even to your identity. That's the end goal. And look, the idea behind behind. While the idea of Buddhism, the same thing sort of in Hinduism, is that you just kind of keep going until you get it. And so your soul, multiple lives, experiences, multiple iterations, where you get to focus on breaking these attachments, and sometimes you have a life full of suffering. Like you're, you know, who knows what kind of suffering but you live that so that you can release it? Yeah. So that's that, but that's their, the underlying premise. So, but you're exactly right. It's like, why to the religion. And so I think Christianity has at its foundation, the why is some kind of redemption, right? That there's a broken part of you. That there's a thing that for some reason is is not good. The fall of Adam is intrinsic to almost all Christian faith. You are so the natural Man is a sinner is a sinner is an enemy to God. Not just like, God's not cool with it. It's an enemy enemy. That's gnarly. Yeah, like, and yet Christ embodies love, unconditional love, and God supposed to be unconditionally loving. There's so many contradictions within Christianity. Right, right. So Christianity has got some things to wrestle with. And so anyway, my personal journey was, I had been studying a lot of stuff. And I studied, like, so called New Age philosophies and religions whenever. And even as a missionary, I would attend other services. I loved it, right, I'd walk in, in my Mormon missionary gear. And I'd go to a Jehovah's Witness it Oh, and to this on 14, I went to their Passover, which was like, amazing. You know, where they're figuring out which of you are the 144,000. Man, I interviewed somebody that was a Jehovah's Witness. I did not know some of those things. That was really fascinating. It was really, really fascinating. Yeah. And I, you know, I'd walk in and hang out with the hottie Krishna is and I mean, like it just whatever I just see, because I believed in my soul, and I still do that there is truth to be had, from every perspective. Everyone, I believe that. So I'm taking all these different perspectives as as many as I can get wherever I can find them. Yeah, so I've been doing that. And I was really, like, considered a radical, like, by a lot of people, which is fine. Like, I'll take it. And then, I don't know, I came home, I fell into the same trap that so many people do. It's like, you've got to do these things. This is your purpose. And it's interesting, because there's this. There's this serious drop that occurs when you are so important in your own mind, right? Because you're a missionary, and I was zone leader. And I was like, an edge traveled in that top people stuff. Like, I brought in missionaries, and I was teaching them communication skills, right. Like, I was teaching them how to listen. And this was my, my biggest training was like eliciting training. And these are young kids who don't know how to do it, right. So I know I'm changing their lives. I'm helping them right. So I felt great. It was wonderful to coach people even back then. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, it's done. And you've got nothing. Yeah. And you're left to yourself. So my family had moved to so like, they moved and they sent a letter to tell me they'd move. And if you ever send a letter to Australia, it takes like six weeks to get there. So I get home, I flew home to an empty house. Wow, they were gone. Oh, what? Yeah, my dad was in town, and business staying in a hotel. And so he picks me up at the airport. And I'm like, Oh, funny joke. Everybody's gonna jump out and say surprise, and there was no surprise, surprise was ever gone. Oh, man, which is fine. Like, that's just kind of, I'm okay with it. But at the time, I was like, Huh. And it just really reinforced this. You're alone now. Yeah. So anyway, I was radically alone. And just empty, right? Because you go from having purpose and drive and you're helping people and you really feel like, like, You're doing good. And then and then you're not you're home. You're just sitting on your hands doing nothing is crazy. Yeah. So all of a sudden, like, you're in this emptiness. And the pressure is you got to do stuff, you got to go out, you got to get married, you got to start a family you got to and all these pressure, all the pressure was there, and I just kind of like what else am I gonna do? So went back to school. Got married really young. Really quick to like, way too quick. And yeah, my personal journey was was one of like, trying to sort myself out from there. Yeah. There was a lot of growing up, there was a lot of like, how you call it religious abuse? Because my stepmother was really like hyper Mormon, but didn't understand any of it. Had no foundation are knowledge of it. And didn't want to. To her her ignorance was powerful. Yeah. Right. And so she leaned into it. And so she's, she has no functional knowledge of it, but she would use it as a cudgel to like control. Myself and my brothers, and my sister and everybody like everybody except her kids. And so it was really like, it's not that it was abuse in the name of religion, but it was that religion was her tool of abuse, right? Like it was her method of control. And so I don't want to make light of any other types of abuse and other very serious and I've experienced some of them. But religious abuse is particularly insidious, because it's your entire world, not just your now it's your future salvation, your salvation, your eternity. He was being like, beaten into me every day. So it's really savage. And, and built into it, especially in well, especially in Christian and Mormon faith is you're, you're broken, you're wrong. Fundamentally, you are bad. And so yeah, like that was like, really hard to deal with. Yeah. But what are you gonna do so you lean into it? And then, I don't know, like, I became a Sunday school teacher, and I don't know I'm pretty. I'm pretty charismatic, and I know how to educate. And I love teaching. I was, at the time I was coaching at Purdue, I was there speech and debate coach. I was teaching argumentation, and really just having a great time. But then also, I was, all of a sudden, a Sunday school teacher, which I mean, it's fine. Like, I'm doctrinally sound, even now, I understand the doctrines really well. So teaching real world application of love. Oh, interesting. And all the sudden people like, wow, this is such a great take. And I'm like, it's gotta take it's the religion. But anyway, we had, it was fun. And then I realized that the religion itself was leaving me less i Leaving it. But more the other way around. And so I don't know, tell me more what you mean by that. If, if you take a look at what Christ actually taught, right? Whether you consider Jesus to be a real person, historically, or a parable, or whatever, or just like, there's even debate about whether Socrates was real, right, or whether Plato just kind of invented him so that he could put out his philosophy from the mouth of another. It doesn't matter, right? If Jesus was or wasn't real, the teachings that came from it, were fundamentally about love. Forgiveness, being kind and gentle. And accepting everyone, yeah, loving the sinner, like who did Jesus hang out with man? Like it was. It was like, what society considered to be the drags. And also, Jesus was like, considered a wine Bibber. And like people like, oh, man, you're just, you're just as radical. And it occurred to me that what was happening in the church was that the very thing in the Bible that most of them didn't read was happening, but that they were the Pharisees, right? Like, all of a sudden, I'm like, Oh, you're a scribe and a Pharisee? What the hell? Why are you not embracing the love of the sinner? Right. And so it occurred to me more, more and more frequently, that people in the church and the church itself, the shifting in the doctrines, was away from love, and towards something very different. Was toward in my opinion, is toward the construct of the church itself as a business maintenance. Yeah, instead of what the fundamentals, but I, that could go into a whole other conversation, I believe, really strongly that what was started is not is drastically different in the intentions of what was originally created by Joseph Smith, versus what we have now. I think, I think it's like, almost a guarantee, under different different under the guise of continued revelation, you can shift it any direction, like, look what happened. Just recently, the church is shifting really hard. I think it's scrambling in a lot of ways, which is, you know, it's right, I suppose. Well, they have more members leaving than ever I mean, religion in general is not just the Mormon religion, there's a hemorrhage so. So for me, I realized that there was this radical shift, and that it wasn't matching my understanding of the Divine. And my understanding of the Divine was also changing. So I studied, I studied philosophy and persuasion, which seems contradictory perhaps. But that's kind of why I did it. I'm like I'm a study in contradictions. I love it. You did Coach and debate. I did. Yeah. And it's interesting. My first philosophy course. It was an intro to philosophy class. Oh, no, it's my second one. This is my second one. My first one was brilliant and changed my life. The second one was total dogshit pardon me can I say that? Yeah, it was rough. These are people that are leaving religion they think they're open Yeah. Although I did do a post on my in my leaving religion to group and said if it's not a hell yes it's a no and and I had a woman comment. Well, welcome. Welcome. Welcome to my podcast, bleeding religion. Amanda, Loveland, and I am excited to be sharing this latest interview with you with Aaron trim back. And he is someone that I recently met and the conversations that just ensued as we were talking, like, Dude, you need to be on my podcast, and you'll soon understand why through his knowledge is Christian philosophy, and just his history within the Mormon religion is, is quite entertaining and really interesting and very useful and helpful for all of you that are interfaith transition. Yeah, so and I have an announcement to make, I am going to be doing a webinar that will be around activating the inner guru with it. And so when we navigate out of religion, and we're doing that pay transition, we kind of feel a little lost and trying to how do we tap into that higher self to spirit, the divine, and even to our intuition. Really, that's all our inner gurus are asking to be activated. So I will be doing a webinar October 23. And that is coming up here pretty quick. In the next 48 hours, I actually 24 hours from when this releases, I will be offering the $22 to register for that webinar specifically for you that are listening. Then after that, it will go up to$33. So get registered head to my website, Amanda joy loveland.com forward slash webinar. And I hope to see you there. Now without further ado, let's dive in to the latest interview that I did with Aaron trumba. So the second class was Introduction to Philosophy, like just like 101, Phil 101 taught by some grad student that whatever. She in the first session, we started talking about sophistry, sophistry is the use of persuasion to win an argument, okay? They don't care about the truth. They care about winning, think like lawyers. My dad's a lawyer, and he might take issue if dad if you're listening to this, congratulations. And also don't worry about it. Yeah. And also, we'll talk. But yeah, so the idea really is sophists don't care about truth, they care about winning. And that's a real dig. If you're a philosopher, and you call someone a sophist, it's like slapping them in the face. The first 20 minutes of my class, we get into sophistry, and I just asked a couple of questions, because I love learning, and I'm asking questions. And this, this ta stops the class is like everyone. This is Aaron. He's a sophist. And I'm like, Oh, I know. That's an insult. I don't fully understand it yet. But and so that's like my introduction to bad philosophy. But that's just because I value persuasion and the understanding of the other. So anyway, I at Purdue, I studied philosophy, and I started persuasion. And I'm not sure why I'm on this riff. But yeah, so the notion of philosophies me is about discovering truth, like finding it wherever it is, I had my shift to Jesus and even played if he was real or not, right. So and my shifting understanding of the Divine occurs as I start to wrestle with the notions that are presented, like throughout history, like what we as as people forever have been struggling with the notion of reality, the notion of our permanence, like, what is real, are we real? How do we know what's the foundation by which we judge? How can we develop an ethic? There's all these different questions that we've been wrestling with, and they're important questions. All sudden, I start wrestling with them in a non religious way, right? How could you not if you're embedded in that and having no Yeah, you? Of course you would. But up to that point, I had gotten away with just kind of saying, I will look at it through the paradigm of my faith. And that's what most people do. They have a faith that is unassailable. It's unquestionable, because it's faith. It's powerful, right? And he's like, Oh, no, this is this is the magic faith. You can't touch it. It's my sacred cow. And from their magic faith, that's it. Yeah. And from there, they get all this other stuff. Good for you, I guess. But really, when you start looking at things from a truth, first perspective, Faith is going there. Every philosophy is going to have what we call a bubble in the flypaper. Underneath it all, there's something you just have to like, swallow. But yeah, this is an assumption that I can't get around. And but I'll just say is good enough. And I'm okay with it. Faith, yes, has a role in that. But if you're coming from a position of faith first or theology first, all of a sudden, everything fits it, you just mold it to fit you, rather than acknowledging it as independently true or false. So all of a sudden, I'm like pursuing truth. Like it for its own sake, right. And it starts to lead me to these conclusions about the self and about eternity and about if infinity exists, then we have to necessarily believe this and this and this. So we get all these conclusions starting to pour in. And a lot of it jives with my faith, right? Because I'm like, okay, cool. I my understanding of the Divine is that it's radically personal and this and this and this, and so I can get to, I can get to like make it make sense. But then all of a sudden starts to not, you know, I start to get to these points where my. So it's not even that my faith starts to shift from the church, but my face starts, my faith starts to shift in general. Right? And then it's almost like your whole foundation of what do I believe to be true is just shaken to its core? Yeah. Which I think is really healthy. Right? Like if you've never challenging hard, really hard, yeah. But also, how many people have taken, you know, like, maybe even like five days to say, what do I actually believe what is actually real? And sometimes you don't even know how to ask those questions. So you have to look at, you know, some of the other great thinkers and say, Okay, what did they say about this? Is there a thing that endures past death? Like, that's a big question. And why do I think that that's true? What conclusion Am I coming to? And what what's getting me there? And so for a lot of people, myself included as point I had done some of the work, but not all of it. So all of a sudden, I start, you know, doing the hard work on, you know, what's the reality of the universe? Can we know things? Like, what is knowledge in the first place? They're hard question. Yeah, they are. I start wrestling with it. And I don't know, I'm still jiving with religion. I'm still like, I'm still teaching, you know, Sunday school, and I'm giving my take and things or not now. Not now. Yes, I just wanted to thank you guys. Good clarification. But like, at that point, your teaching had to shift had to have shifted, but it became it became more became less about how do you say it? The doctrine is still taught the doctrine? Audit hard, right? Because the doctrine itself, like, if you actually look at it as a fun, it's fundamentally pretty, pretty good if you go with the Jesus stuff, right. But then, where it started, like, become difficult, is when you get out of that. But I focus on that I focus on love and being good to people, and like, you know, the ethic of, of doing the right thing for the right reason, and not because God's gonna punish you for it or whatever, for reward. And so all of a sudden, people are starting to have these little micro shifts. And I'm like, Okay, this is way fun. And then, I don't know, there, there just came a time when it wasn't there anymore. I was done. And I can't, I don't know that there was a single moment, or if it was this gradual, like, get tired of it. But I do know that there were a couple of big like, oh, yeah, I'm finished now. A moments and one of them was that you probably get this a lot. Actually, when people talk about their moments. I feel like everyone's are pretty unique, although yours and mine are oddly a little similar. Which I have not ran into. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. For me, I knew there was no reconciliation when the church came out with the position that children Oh, yeah, gay parents cannot be baptized. That was my final like, yeah, yeah. And after that, there were these shifts, but I'm still like, okay, with stuff. I was like, Yeah, okay. Like, whatever. My version of Mormonism. I'm a Mormon Buddhist, I tell people. Yeah, that's interesting. Because, you know, it's a Buddhist philosophy, philosophy, I, I'm not a good Buddhist. I don't even consider myself proper Buddhist. But like, the idea was that it was informed by Buddhism. So anyway, when that came out, I was like, What is going on? This doesn't make any sense. Logically, right? Right. My brain was messed up with it, like no way that this doesn't work. My heart was out of whack with it. Like that. A child, you're gonna tell a child that they why, right? And so my heart and my and my brain, and my very soul just rejected this notion. And I should clarify, that's when I was already out. But that is when it was because they feel like you go through this position, you choose to step out of the religion, and then it's that whole wrestling of do I keep my records? Or do I get my my records removed? Yeah. And that was my when that happened. It was like, Oh, I am no, we're done. It just didn't make sense to me. At the very least, be consistent. Right? Right. Like if you're an organization, you need to be consistent. You can't say, you know, this is the case for somebody and this isn't the case for somebody else needing those special exceptions be consistent. Yeah. And there's this children of gay people can't be married or can't be married can be baptized. But they didn't say the same thing about even a murderer. Yeah. Right. Like if your parents are serial killers, you can still join the church. how messed up is that? That's that's absolutely messed up. So they're saying that homosexuality is worse than well is uniquely something is uniquely bad to them or whatever, like, and it's not even that it's not even homosexuality, because like it's not the child is an eight year old child. Right? It's the parents like it just blew my mind. It made zero sense. And that's when I was like, Okay, well, I'm not even gonna try anymore. I can't even pretend to pretend. Yeah. So for me, I've always been. I've been really like, strictly obedient. And even up until very recently, I found myself, like, just kind of like one of the, even if I don't buy the church, I've made this promise. Like I promised God or the divine or the universe or whatever, that I wouldn't do whatever this is. And so the promise itself was sacred to me. And it still kind of is like, if I make a promise, I'll keep it. But then I look at the promises that I've made. I was like, but did I really understand them? Was it a promise that I wanted to make? Was it willing? Or was I culturally pressured into doing it? Yeah, it was just the thing that you did. Yeah. Even though you technically have a way to escape where you're going to go. Didn't have a tribe? So I think yeah, I think it was the the pressure and the lack of other options. What was that around the same time as a story that you had shared when we were in Springdale stepped into a shared a lot of stories? No one where you stepped you are, you're like, you were sharing that? You know, you're a big tough guy riding on your motorcycle. So interesting. Yeah, yeah, that one? Oh, geez, I'll share that. So yeah, I'm a big guy. And I used to be a daily Harley rider until I got run over. So just I love my motorcycle. I love that, that life. I love the freedom of it. Sir, I ride in, I've got a big beard. And I'm, for those who can't see me. I have a big beard. And I'm bald. I've shaved my head. And I am very deliberate in my look. Anyway, rolling to church. It's been it's been some time since I've gone to church. And I was like, Yeah, you know, I'll go. I feel like reconnecting might be good. But I roll in. I had just got back from my sister's wedding, where she had married a woman shock. My parents, my mother would have been if she could have, she had something come up. She went to like the ceremony before, but couldn't make it to the wedding. So she gets a pass. And my brother Jake also had attended something else with her but couldn't make it to the actual wedding. But the rest of my family intentionally didn't go. It's a big family. Right. And so they were like, No, this is a boycott. And it was really rough being the only one there representing half of the wedding. It was like, not great. My cousin, to his credit, did show up. And he lived nearby. And so he and the family dropped in for a couple minutes. And, you know, he's active Mormon. But he has a really good understanding and always was non traditional. He's really good understanding of like, the underpinnings of it, Fred, I'm talking about you. But yeah, so what happened next was really rough. So I roll in. This is just after the church has come out with their thing. chronologically, I think it was before. Okay. Just curious. Yeah. Yeah, at times tricky. Right now, I know it is. I gotta like rewind and relive doesn't matter. I was just curious. The question, though. So I roll in, and people look at me. To be clear, I'm like, I'm wearing you know, the white shirt and tie. I'm gonna have a blue shirt. But anyway, I roll in, and I'm respectful. But I'm very obviously not your traditional, like Mormon guy. And this happens outside of the church, too. People look at me, and they think they know who I am. Immediately, which is fine. That's cool. I use that to my advantage, usually, right? Like, I'll be like, oh, yeah, you think I'm this guy? Sure. Let's talk. Let's talk monster trucks, whatever. I'll riff with you about diesel engines, I can do that. So I make it the church get two elders quorum, which is like, I think the third meeting, maybe it's the second meeting. I think it's the second meeting and this one. And the instructor asks an awesome question, like, awesome. I'm really excited about it. Okay. He goes, What's the biggest problem facing the church today? And I'm like, Good gravy. This is awesome. Let's talk. And I'm like, it's, you know, maybe hypocrisy amongst the membership. It's an absence of appreciation of love and all these different things. I'm like, going through my mind like, yes, these are great things. We can talk about meaningful discussion. And the first person to speak while I'm thinking and formulating my thoughts is this dude in the back and he just kind of spouts off? Well, it's all them queers. And I'm like, what, I liked her and I give him this like, slow look over my right shoulder. I can still see this dude. In my mind's eye as he looks at me and gives me do this like smile this like smug, self affirmed? Smile and gives me this like little thumbs up. Like yeah, but I'm with you, we hate gays. And I'm about to lose my mind. Right? Listen, I was like, I instructed debate and argumentation. I was a competitor, I was named. I had all I got a full trophy case, a full trophy case of saying good job at talking real good. And making other people feel dumb sometimes. And I just looked at this dude. And I was like, You have no idea. The RAF? Oh, that's open on you. So it was fresh. It was raw for me, like my sister had just been rejected by my family for she was. I don't know, man. So So I turned and looked at this dude, he gives me the thumbs up. And I was like, oh, man, that's it. It's over. So I kind of took over the class. And my overarching premise was the real problem facing the church is this guy. The fact that he thinks he's winning a war of love with tools of hate? And how on earth can you do that? You can't, it's impossible. And so at the end of it, you know, there are people that were like weeping like men that were weeping in this class, because they never had anybody stand up against like, the bullying of the church before. And not even the church proper. Like, I know, that's not the Church's position or whatever. But like, that exists in the church, and people just kind of roll with it. Nobody stands up to it. So I stood up to an address this guy down for the full session, like this guy, and the idea of him became my target. And it was rough, dude, like, I'm not gonna love what you originally tell you this day. You're like, I wanted to check to see who this guy was before. You know? Like, maybe it's some old guy generational gap. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's be clear. Yeah, he was, uh, he was probably younger than me, actually. It's not a huge town. But like, you know, he should know better, right? So I put him in his 30s. Maybe not a traditional regular what you expect Utah Mormon to be? But like, he's, there's one of him in every word, right at least. And he didn't, there was no rejection of what he said either. There was no like, oh, Bill, you got to calm it down. That just like hung in the air. Right. And that's when I decided I had to go. Yeah, I had to do I think it's beautiful that you did. It was almost a mandate. I wish I was there. And that I really enjoyed that. It was it. Honestly, I don't remember most of it. Because you kind of slip into this flow. And it just kind of happened. And then at the end, I was like, and that's the last you'll see of me. Goodbye. And never once did anyone even reach out. Hmm. Like they knew where I was. And my number. They were done. They knew. Yeah. So anyway, I dressed him down. Oh, and then this homie had that he had been asked to give the closing prayer. At the very beginning. Before all this went down. He's like, so then he's got to go stand back up on front of everybody ripped him apart, and he gets up and the last word he thinks he's gonna get in. The last word before the prayer is, you know, a lot of people think I'm a bigot, but that's not true. None I'm like Berto. So the last word that I got in was, maybe you should buy a dictionary. And then he gave this like, weird prayer. And I bought I just pieced out of there, man. It was rough. But like, that was enough for me like, that was it. And there are people in that in that room, who'd spent their entire life maybe struggling with this deep self hatred, because maybe they are gay. Like maybe they're wrestling with this thing. And they just will never acknowledge it, they'll they'll push it away. They'll never be who they are. Because who they are as bad. And all of a sudden, they have somebody standing up for them. And they just, it was beautiful. That part about it was see them have a champion and to fall behind them. It was really beautiful. Anyway, so I do that every day. If I could I go out there and have a conversation. Take up the sword. But yeah, yeah. So anyway, that was a couple of moments like that. For me. Yeah. They just kind of solidified that. Yeah, the religion left you. Yeah. But it was more your awareness around the fundamentals. Right. Yeah. Great observation. Yeah. It's not so much that there was any radical shift in the religion even though it has changed. It's just that I became more conscious. And that's fine. I think that's beautiful. Like, I look back at what I consider to be like, the primary tool of my abuse, right, the people that were abusing me, we're using the religion to do it. And it is what it is it's it's not like I'm I don't resent the church. I don't resent people in the church. And I think I owe that to having a really gradual departure. Yeah. I do recognize that a lot of my pain is someone in the church teaching me to hold the religious gun to my head, myself, my whole life. And so I became my own abuser, because the church tenant teaches you, not just the church, but like Christianity proper, assumes badness in you. It assumes this foundation of being wrong, you're fallen. And so if that's your base, you're you're stuck, man, you're kind of screwed, you're screwed. You really can never work out of that until after you die. And hopefully, you've done enough good, you've done enough good. And then and then there's other, you know, branches of Christian faith where it's like, yeah, but I've accepted Jesus in my life. But ultimately, you can't get there by yourself. There's no, there's no, there's a gap. Yeah. Well, and this brings up, you know, one of the things they think that it's really important to remember, especially for those of you listening, that are in the process of leaving and navigating the waters, and even I'm 10 years out and some of the things that we're speaking to now, I did a podcast a few episodes ago about the fact that I believe that we're, Christianity is on the triangle, we're victims, God's God, Jesus rescue or, you know, Satan is the devil, or the devil is the persecutor. But there's all these different he even spoke to it earlier with these promises, that that was really sacred to you that there's still a part of you that holds on to that. Yeah. There's all these things that were fundamentally part of who we were, and still are. And I think it's important to remember this piece that you're speaking to right here of like, there, you really can never do any write on this planet and hope and maybe, but maybe, maybe you can, maybe there's a chance that if you're repenting enough, if you're good enough, if you're without acknowledging that these are shadow parts of you that you actually feel shame and guilt about these natural parts of man, that maybe it's possible that as you're listening right now, how much of that are you still carrying with you? Even though you stepped out the religion? Right? Most of us probably are still carrying parts of that have never got enough. Yeah. Because it's been fundamentally a part of for, you know, I was born and raised within Mormon religion for several generations. Yeah, a lot of us have been. So then there's that encoding that also comes through. So it's an interesting awareness to think about how much of that religious upbringing is actually still hanging out in my coding. So this is a beautiful point. Let's slip into a little philosophy. Absolutely. So Nietzsche, Love him or hate him. Those of you who have studied Nietzsche, I don't care. I think Nietzsche has got a lot of really good to say about what is real. So his primary criticism, he has a pretty heavy criticism against Christianity in general. He's like, one of my favorite bits is he thinks that Jesus, the character of the person is an Ubermensch, which is like the goal, the overmanned the thing that's overcome everything, and that has used their will, which is the central part of what it is to be human is your will, to power. And he consistently is just gaining more power, gaining more power, and he has meekness, his power. He has the capacity to do anything, but he chooses not to. And so he's like, that's great. But then Christians come in after him. And they say, Oh, I'm meek. But really, they're just weak. And so they're putting on the clothes of meekness, which is power, just because they can't do something. Like, I have no power. Oh, that's great. How good that I am weak, is like that. That's garbage, you should strive to improve and get more power with power being understood as the ability to act in a situation right. And so his issue with Christianity is like several fold, but one of the biggest ones is like, Jesus got it right. And nobody else after him really did. If you lived like Jesus did, actually empowered. You'd get, you'd get there. It's hard. Sure. But like, if you actually were striving to be to develop yourself and develop power, then you'd be great. So So Nietzsche gets this big line about a whole second thing about resentment is this principle is a resentment against something you can't stop. So for him, God is this, right? There's or the power that God represents, or the universe or whatever, or a master of some kind. So, Nietzsche says, there is this resentment that is impotent. You have no power to do anything about it. I can hate God I can rage that guy. But nothing's gonna change. So where do I put that? I put it inside, I put it on myself. And so this anger towards this external power that is ultimately unchangeable forces me that anger is gotta go somewhere. And so this resentment is a self enslavement, and a self self abuse in the name of the person or the entity that you can't control. So, it's interesting to your point about guilt and shame and all these things that are kind of intrinsic to, I think, a lot of a lot of Christian faith and the people that have grown up in it. I think a lot of that is because of this resentment. We can't, we can't change the divine or the universe or whatever. So we turn that that sadness, that anger, that hatred, and that kind of disgust onto ourselves, and and, frankly, onto other people. Yeah, that's judgment piece. Yeah. Do you find, however, that I would agree with that? Largely, I think that there's a lot of wisdom in that. And I would think within Christianity or within religion, in general, it is something that you would carry, until you do shift out of understanding that God is within Yeah, instead of exactly about exactly what. And then to that point of what he's saying, with Jesus and master, it's self mastery. It's that sovereignty piece of what am I capable of? Sovereignty is perfect. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't mean to say that Nietzsche was 100%. Right, right. I just think that it's interesting first. And to say, yeah, maybe that's got some weight to it. Yeah. Like you said, and I agree wholeheartedly. There's truth in all things. And all things. Yeah. One piece I think is really interesting. If you look at the Christian societies, right? Any society that has Western air quotes, Western society, is going to have its roots in the same sort of philosophy. Right? And when you think about the, the vulgar, right, the profane, what's a swear word? Can you think of a swear word that is not either one religious hell Damn. And the variations thereof, or two about the physical body? I like the F word is about, you know, it's a carnal physical function. We talked about excrement in a very negative way. I heard a podcast recently that actually associated This is fuck, actually, with high ecstasy pleasures connecting with God, which I hadn't. And I can't remember what the somebody had. There's some principal or something that associated that. That was the first time that I'd ever heard that connection. I'd be interested to hear there. It was an Aubrey Marcus part podcast you did with his wife, I'll have to go fine. I'll send it to you. But like the even the word volger All it means is common. It just means everybody has it. Right. But everything. When we when somebody is being mean to us, we call them like an asshole or a dick. Why? Why is there shame associated? Why is that bad? Those are just things that people have, well, even the feminine body parts that are especially the feminine body, you know, they are, then you go and use that as swear words. And those are the ones that you're saying I'm even uncomfortable using. But yeah, totally. And it's the it's the physical that is shameful. Right. And so, but it's but it's not the case in non western environments as much right? It's less so. But it's the Christian foundation. I think that you know, this this mortality, bad body bad thing, and it's just kind of permeated? Well, if you look at the foundation, you're going to know the history much much better than I am but the foundation and the start of Christianity came from different leaders rule rulers that wanted to have more say on their people, how do we control how do we minimize how do we I mean, really, that is more when Christianity and the fundamental Christianity was started and honed. Yeah, so religion writ large kind of has that. If you look at like the pure Vedic religions, and even in India before it was India going way back into Eastern religion even before Hinduism, you start with fire. Right? And fire is the sacred thing because it is dangerous. It's cool. There's a lot of good stuff. It you know, can clean things and it can cook your food and keep you from getting sick, keep you warm, keep you alive, but it also can burn down the village. So So it's considered sacred at that point. So the first priesthood that formed was to control the sacred fire. And as an extension of that, suddenly fire becomes more manageable, right? Like, we're like, oh, we can control it. Now we understand the science of it a little bit better. But this priesthood has had its entire existence based on the control of fire. So now what do you do? Here's my whole livelihood, is going to be taken away because somebody can have a fireplace in their house? Yeah. Well, then all of a sudden, there's a shift towards the internal fire. And all it is, is like self regulation. So now you go to a guru or to a yogi, and they teach you how to regulate your internal fire, you know, your muscles burning when you do yoga. That's if you track its roots all the way back. That's like the first iteration of this external fire becoming internal. And what am I going to do with that? Well, I need somebody to teach me. So all sudden, you have religion as a means of control again, it's not just controlling fire, but now it's controlling your body. Right? And I'll give you that what Eastern religions tend to be less controlling. But there still is some like gatekeeping. And gatekeeping is not always bad, right? It's just can be abused. You're exactly right. Religion, by and large, is designed to say, this is how you do the thing. These are the standards by which you live. So yeah, I totally get it. And yeah, religion itself, I don't think really matters where you're from. Which religion? It is. It all kind of has the same thrust. Yeah. Yeah, I would wholeheartedly agree with that. Well, we're hitting about the hour mark, which is usually when I like to start wrapping up, although it's quick. I know, it is quick. And I would, it would be fun to actually have you come back on and speak a little bit more to the philosophies because most people, one of the things that I so enjoy and appreciate about you is the breadth of knowledge that you do. Hold. Thank you. And I mean, goodness sakes, our conversations then unwinding these parts of you know, maybe this is all an illusion, and you start diving into some of that. That is, since we've already said the fuck on this podcast, it is a mindfuck is you know, but it is interesting things to consider as as you're navigating out of religion and into different places of what is truth for me. Because in my opinion, truth is objective. There are some fundamental truths like gravity, job, things like that. But for the most part, truth is subjective. Yeah. So I think that the true will be generally true. But also, our lived experience is what matters. Right? Right. And it's the things that we so so okay, you kind of spilled my coffee a little bit here. Not really, in saying that, physical objects, the physical object discussion, and if I do come back, I'd love to get into it and just kind of riff on reality. Right. And I'll be more prepared for that. But I had a really interesting conversation recently did a dance retreat last weekend. I didn't dance. I don't know yet. You were there creating some of your cocktails, which will I'm gonna we're gonna dive into this in a second. Oh, sure. Sure. So yeah, I was there creating cocktails, and just really helped. Like, I just love that stuff. So anyway, I'm there doing that. And I get into conversation with this woman, about the nature of reality. And I say something to the effect of which I actually believe the most of our life like life in general, it's really difficult to prove to me that it's not a simulation, right? That it's not something that I am, the me that is actually me is participating in, but that the stuff around us isn't real, and the physical objects aren't actually real. I'm never gonna get this table in front of me, I can't actually understand it, because I can't, I'll never access it causes the thing in itself, which is like the actual essence of it, I can't, I can't get access to I can't get access to you in your interior space. I just have kind of what's inside me, which this interior space is not physical thing. So I think the physical objects properly are not real. Now, having said that, I'm still going to leave this room through the door, and I'm still going to eat food. And I'm still going to, you know, pay my bills and all those things. But as I'm speaking this woman, I realized the important punchline to this whole piece. I might be wrong. Physical objects might be real. But living as though they aren't, is the right way to live. Because if you're living as though they aren't, the thing that matters is the experience of the thing, not the thing itself. It's my interaction with the thing that's valuable. And so if I'm living for the expense answers of things, and not for the things themselves, then all of a sudden, I'm living for the right reasons. I'm not living for the car, I'm living for the drive. That makes sense. 100%. So she helped me it's about the being and not the doing, it's about enjoying the experience, because yes, this table is 99.99999% space base. Yes. And we know from science that particles move based off of our intention, our thought, our desire, so then in that sense, are we creating everything in our reality? And if that's the case, then yeah, can we just enjoy what we're creating, and understand we are craving it. So create something different if you don't really enjoy it, word. So if you can just realize that the physical objects around me real or not real doesn't matter. They're not the goal. The goal is to enjoy them, and to experience them and to share that with other people, then all of a sudden, your life becomes much less ugly, right? Like you're not worried about the grind, and the mundane and the becomes, you start focusing on these sublime moments of, of shared experience with a kindred soul. One, this kind of circles back to where we first started with talking about Buddhism versus Christianity and, and the fundamental principles of that it reminds me of a book that I read called the afterlife, Billy fingers, which is such an odd title. But it follows his journey, he shares his experience after he dies with his sister who's still alive. And she channels his book and writes it. And it was the first book that I read. I've never read such an extensive transition story as somebody's transition into the afterlife and the different levels, so to speak. But he was a drug dealer, he was in this light in his life, lived out of his car was homeless most of his life, but it was all experience. And he speaks to that, and how in the grander sense of things that was exactly perfect for what his soul wanted to choose. And it was the first book that I had read when you read his story, that I wondered if we're not in a karmic cycle. Yeah. And until we wake up, till we understand that we are the creators of our reality, it is all about enjoyment and some different pieces that I you know, we're still moving into, are we just continuing to continually incarnate over and over again until we become awake enough to realize that oh, we're more than this? Yeah. I think there's a lot of a lot of room for that. I really do. But yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to riff on philosophy at length, or even, you know, whatever, whatever, probably has been a lot of fun. Well, and one of the things I wanted to touch on, I mean, besides the fact you're freaking brilliant, and you coach, I do a lot of coaching in different modalities, at least you have I have, maybe you are not currently, like, I'm happy to get back into it. My life has been really, I don't know, man, I, I chase dopamine. And so when something's really fun, I finally this is the third time dopamine has come up in the last few days. For me this, this is really interesting for me to witness, I throw myself absolutely throw myself into something that I like. And I go all in for as long as it keeps my interest. Which means if you are passionate about something, you can master it fairly quickly. I throw myself in and I master things pretty quickly because it's it consumes me, right? It's not a job. It's like my passion. Right? And so a big part of what I've done has been coaching. I love it. I love teaching I love working with people. And and then you're ready for change. When you do these amazing classes that talk about spirits, liquor, yeah, alcohol. Yeah. So one of my most recent ventures that I really love, I found myself in Utah, kind of by accident. I was getting ready for accidentally on purpose. It was beautiful. And I'm really glad I'm here. But I was getting ready for a five year journey through Southeast Asia, I was going to live like a fisherman like I was going to be a fisherman actually, and just kind of travel through villages and be super poor. And I was really excited for it. Because I needed to kind of put a capstone on that part of my lived experience. And I was like, ready to go. And then COVID hit and close Thailand, which was going to be my first stop. So I'm like, well, now what do I do? My brothers lived in Pleasant Grove, Utah. And they're like, Hey, come stay with us for a while. Well, this whole COVID thing blows over. Like, yeah, six weeks. Sure. Then all of a sudden, I'm stuck in Pleasant Grove. And I'm like, What am I doing here? This place is wonderful, but also very boring. Your tech County. Yeah. And so it didn't take me long to want to do something else. And so all of a sudden I found myself I've been a bartender my whole life like my whole adult life. I found myself opening a new bar program in Pleasant Grove and it was really good and I was able to do what I wanted to do the craft cocktails and like really custom stuff. Beautiful work. I love it. I love it so much. And then, man, I get this guy coming into my bar. And he is very clearly either still a member of the Mormon church, or, like, usually yesterday, left, right? Like, he comes in and he sits like, so uncomfortable. He's so uncomfortable. And I try my best to put people at ease. And I'm like, how's it going, man? What are you drinking today, and he has like this fear in him, and it's radiating off of him. Like the devil himself is gonna drag him by the ankles, under my bar and into hell. And he just says, he looks at me in the face. And he says, I'll have a Roman Coke, Roman, and I'm like, a Roman coke. And he's like, yeah, please Roman coke. And I was like, a Roman coke doesn't exist. I've been doing this for 18 years, but and it doesn't, it's not a thing. And he's like, it's a, it's a coke with rum in it. And I was like, Oh, my poor, sweet summer child, that is a rum and coke. Oh, man. And it occurred to me that this poor guy had probably made a fool of themselves without knowing it. And if you do something like that, in front of an important person, at a cocktail party, you know, you don't get your promotion. It's just the way it is like relationships, the decisions about your maid, whether you like it or not, based on your impression, and all of a sudden, they think you're a doofus. So I'm like, oh, man, so give him a quick crash course. And it occurred to me, like there's a lot of people like him, who have recently left the church, and who don't know, at all, how to live as though they're not in the church. And so I started teaching courses on I call it, I call it my how to drink for recovering Mormons class. And I teach it on Sundays. It's my church of the non Holy Spirits. And so I teach people about the spirits themselves, what their identities are, how they're made, give you kind of the vocabulary to engage with them. And then I make the best version that I can make of the best cocktails for each of the spirits. So that you can go into any bar, and comfortably order something, and first of all, not look stupid. And second of all, be confident. And get a drink that you gonna like, yeah, right. And so to me, that's been so fun. And I really, I understand, that's why I'm here. I'm in this area, specifically, because of the volume of recovering Mormons who need kind of a metropolitan education on cocktails. One of the things that I appreciate it about because I would have loved to go to a class like that when I was stepping out of religion, because it is like this. I don't know what I like, I don't like that. I don't like that. And that it almost becomes a little bit abused. Right? It does, instead of having this appreciation for where this spirit came from, what's the background of it? What's the actual foundation of it? What does that just taste like? And you do have a different appreciation for it in general. Yeah. And so it becomes more of a, like, I love food. I'm a food like a foodie, I will go and appreciate the different things that are put together, although I won't eat certain things, because I know what I don't like, yeah, it's the same thing with alcohol, like you get to a place of appreciating it more for the experience versus the I just want to get a buzz or I'm just gonna go get shit faced, or, and so as a big part of my classes, like helping people not drink like a college frat boy, when they leave the church, because that always happens. They always fall in and they're like, Well, this is what it is, is what I'm supposed to do. And like Amen. And then you develop an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. And then everybody that was in the church was right, because that's exactly, you know, exactly. It's self reinforcing. You're like, oh, well, I shouldn't ever drink. It's obviously bad. But really, if you're drinking a cocktail that's carefully made, and is thoughtfully made, I should say, all of a sudden, you're getting like a flavor experience. As a craft cocktail grater, like as a mixologist, I, I'm trying to evoke experiences for people. I still remember how to carpool down to this event with this guy. And he's like, Well, I got a bunch of alcohol in the back. I'm like, Well, I'm doing a cocktail event for part of this retreat. And he's like, Oh, so you're mixologist. And he spits the word out like it's poisoned. It's a mixologist. I'm like, I mean, yeah. I was like, I've been doing it for a long time, but and he's like, Okay, well, everyone calls themselves a mixologist. I just drink to get drunk. I'm like, Cool, that's fine. Do it. That's that's your life. But try my stuff. And so Dan's a pretty cool guy. He's got a whole lifetime. He's never been in the church. He's got a whole lifetime of drinking behind him. And he's a little offended because he's normally the the drink mixer guy. And all of a sudden I'm coming in new love. That was my little edge. Yeah, yeah. So he had a little a little bite to it. And then and then I'm making my basil Gimlin. Right? This is my Mona Lisa. This is a cocktail that is so simple and so elegant. I've worked on it for a long time before I finally got it just where I want it. And it's springtime in a glass. I gave him this drink, right? And he like gets tears in his eyes. Like he starts to weep. And he's probably in his 60s Grizzly old man, like talk about fighting people all day long. And he's weeping because this cocktail took him to his childhood. It's like that ratatouille moment, right? He's like, he's a sister sipping it, he doesn't shoot it, like his shots normally goes down. And he sits there. And it comes over to me afterwards. He's like, wiping the tears. I was, I suppose Aaron, this took me to the apple orchard next to my house, when I grew up. I used to steal apples as a kid and like that experiences are, it's right here. And that, to me, is why I do it. Right. Like it's my a, I'm able to bypass most of the channels of communication to get my idea right into your soul. So that's what I'm doing. And I love it. And teaching people how to make drinks is important, but also teaching how to appreciate it, and how to walk into a bar and not not feel intimidated, right. If you can sit down at the bar and competently order a drink that you like, and that you can reliably get your relationship with alcohol will shift you're not drinking to get drunk, you're drinking for the experience. And then it's healthy. No, then it's positive. It's not showing the moment like we were just talking about an experience. Exactly. So most of my clients, they'll drink three cocktails spaced out over the course of a night when at my restaurant, but they won't get drunk drunk. Because their whole goal is to be able to experience the thing that we've made together. And I love doing things like that, where they'll come in and say, I'd like you to make me drink. And I say, Okay, what experience you're going for? Yeah, like, Do you have a time in your life or location or any emotion that we want to evoke here? I love that stuff. So somebody to come in. And I think you actually I really liked this last, the retreat that we went to, I had a cocktail portion of it. Just I love that stuff. And the four ladies, the four divas that, that created the event and held the space. I was given this, for the listeners a Herculean task, it was really hard actually, to make a drink that represents four separate people as one. Right? Like the the four women that held such radically different energy and hosted this space. And Sarah's like, Hey, make a drink that represents all of us, like, almost like a throw away, like, yeah, you can do it. And I'm like, Oh, shit. No, no, I don't know that I can. Yes, you did. And thank you. Yeah. So I was like, What can I do after four very distinct flavors that all do different things, but work together. Well, how do I do it? And so that challenge is just beautiful. I love that stuff. Yeah. And was it okay, it turned out, okay. Oh, my gosh, I still I'm like, can you come back over to my house and make that drink? Because that was probably the most. So just to clarify, it was me, Sarah kami. And Shelby, this last retreat. And the four of us are very different. And a lot of ways and so coming together was for sure an interesting task and you, you knocked it out of the park. And it is one of those things that even with the other drinks that you had mix, that was like the sipping experience. This one was one that's like, Oh, I just want to I just want to take my time with it because the flavors would continue to evolve. And it was it was spectacular. I still want to know who was who because Aaron went through and like was like, Okay, I'm adding this because this is earthy that I'm adding this because it has how however many herbs in it and like all these different and then flowers and lime and I really tried so my goal was I needed to have four very powerful presences. And so if you're dealing with a spirit that has a powerful like presence, first one is going to come to mind is with Jin Jin is a dominant spirit and if you ever drink Janet's like essence of pines all it just tastes like he's like a pine tree right? By itself, but if you're just shooting gin, you you probably an alcoholic. Let's talk let's talk yeah, look me up and we'll we'll work on it. But so gin as a star is brilliant because it'll take herbal flavors and other things and bring it out to the front. So anyway, yeah, I did gin. We did elderflower at a green Chartreuse lime. I love lime, sweeten it a little bit. It's just like, it was amazing. Thank you. Yeah, I was really pleased with it. I think it turned out but part of the point is flavors and understanding your craft. My craft is flavors have different half lives. So my goal is to give you a flavor experience that is balanced but still changes and evolves. So your first taste you're going to get all of the flavors but the most dominant one is upfront, but I want that flavor to fall off first. So then you've taste the subtle underneath. And so you have different flavors that are gonna last for different amounts of time on your tongue. And as they fall off, you get this different experience. And so that's, that's really what I'm leading into. And I love it. It's my art. And I'm really pleased. And so you teach these classes, you'll actually create classes for people, if they grab grab a group together. It's right. Yes. So how do people get a hold of you? Yeah. My best way. So I'm good at a lot of things. And I'm really bad at several things. You are not on social media, not on social media, because of my mental health is so much better when I'm not on social media. But my business is suffer and I get it, there's a trade off. So you can email me directly. Is Aaron Aaro n dot Michael mi ch AE L dot Trump AF ter embath@gmail.com and be like, Hey, I heard about your class. I'd be interested in taking one. And then I'll put you on the shortlist. I'm working on a website with my brother. By the time this podcast airs, it might even be up. And I'll get you that information. But they say podcast website. So we're gonna website. I'll let you know. But yeah, like that's basically it. If you get 10 people, at least I'll start a class for you. I kind of kept them at about 25 or 30, they start to get a bit unwieldy at that point. But, but 10 to 20 is really good number. I'll make sure to put your email down below and when the if you have your website up by the time this airs, and I'll put that down below. Sounds great. Thank you. But oh, my goodness, Aaron. It's a pleasure. You don't really watch. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Well, have I seriously, I want to have you back on again. Because I would love to dive into some of the philosophy philosophy, because even the fundamentals of religion and their backgrounds most of us do not know. Yeah, I know. I don't I know, some I know a little probably more than a lot of people. But yeah, but still even that is very, very minimal. I would be happy to, to come back. And I would love to. If I was prepared to speak specifically on philosophy I'd be I'd be happy to do it. That'd be super fun. Real pleasure. Awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thanks. All right. One last question. I always ask all my questions, my guest this, for those for everything that you've gone through navigating the waters after religion and kind of going through that transition period. For those that are listening, that are in that place of just struggle, everything's kind of falling away. What what is the one thing right now in this moment that you would impart is like, this is my advice to you? Yeah, I would advise you to remember that religion is not spirituality. That they're different. You can be spiritual and not religious. In fact, that's the best way to be. Yeah. Yeah, and then when everything starts to fall away all your foundations or whatever, there is something holding you up. And that something is what you should lean into. So take a look at it and figure out what it is and cling to it. And it's not going to be the structure of the faith. But it will be something that's deeper than that. Something that the faith is trying to sell you. And that's something you already have, which is your intrinsic relationship to the divine. Yeah. It's radically personal. It's just yours. And even though religion has been selling it back to you for your entire life. You had it in the first place. Yeah, beautiful. Thank you. Wasn't that an awesome interview? Thank you for joining us today. If you are feeling the call to be a guest, head over to my website, Amanda Joy loveland.com. And go to the podcast tab, you'll see halfway down the page, a place where you can submit an application to come on to my podcast, I would love to have you as a guest. And don't forget if you are wanting to be a part of that amazing webinar that I'll be hosting on October 30 at 10am Mountain Standard Time, head to my website, Amanda joy loveland.com forward slash activation and get registered today. And as always know that you are not alone. And while you are feeling alone as you're navigating through this, there are a lot of people who can understand and empathize what with what you're going through. So with that, sending you so much love