A Life Well LIT

Practical Spirituality

• Brielle Goheen • Episode 23

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I'm talking with someone very special today - Dr Brad Melle (who also happens to be my husband). He is a religious historian with his own podcast called Freestyle Theology where he 'wonders freely out loud' about God and faith and spirituality.

He invited me to be on his podcast to talk about my work in Practical Spirituality. I loved the conversation so much, I immediately knew that I wanted to share it with you, too.

We talk about challenging the self-help industry's status quo, advocating for a compassionate and individualized approach to unlocking true productivity. We talk about the traps of mimetic desires and societal pressures that can lead us astray from our innermost yearnings, emphasizing the importance of aligning with our authentic selves to cultivate a life brimming with purpose and joy. We even delve into the complexities of our survival systems—the innate biological mechanisms that drive our motivations and responses.

Finally, we get into the transformative framework of the LITlife program, where defining a Lucid purpose shapes the creation Intentional systems so that Targeted actions make your most important work the easiest to do.

Check out Brad's podcast Freestyle Theology or follow him on Instagram for some more creative and inspiring conversations.

And, if you're interested, grab my FREE Inbox Zero Training and follow me on Instagram for daily peptalks and encouragement.

Brielle:

Welcome to A Life Well LIT. I'm Brielle Goheen and I'm obsessed with the question of how to live a life that is fu lly LIT I up from the inside out. I believe that knowing our purpose and defining our why is the key to becoming sustainably productive, taking targeted actions toward our vision of a fully LIT life. My most foundational purpose is to dance (metaphorically speaking and sometimes literally) in the bright light of freedom, and to invite others to dance with me. The spaces I dance in are creativity and music, and crafting a peacefully productive life. For me, A Life Well LIT looks like pursuing wholeness and healing in all areas of life and constantly challenging myself to ask a new question and think a new thought. The only way to do this sustainably is to craft systems that support the dance of freedom, the LIT life that I've chosen to pursue. If you want to come along for the dance, yours will undoubtedly look very different than mine, but you are so welcome here. I can't wait to see you living your own version of A Life Well LIT.

Brielle:

Today's episode is a little bit different.

Brielle:

I sat down with Dr Bradley Melle and it feels a little bit funny to say that, because he is husband, my mhusband mso so s ho o s /Bradley. .Melle.... e.. But him Dr Bradley Mella, but Brad and I sat down and he wanted to talk with me on his podcast Theology. s a is called Freestyle Theology.

Brielle:

He wanted to talk to me about my work in this hybrid world of productivity coaching that is rooted in spiritual coaching, aligning the practical aspects of life with the fundamental deep beliefs that we have about the world. The practical aspects of life and the spiritual beliefs that we have are completely intertwined with each other. They're inseparable, and so he wanted to talk with me on his podcast about that, and I thought: why not kill two birds with one stone and release it as well for you? Because Brad is really wonderful and he has some awesome insights in this podcast that I think you're going to really love, and I think you're going to really love him as well. He's just a wonderful guy. So here is the conversation that Brad and I had about the spirituality of productivity, or, another way to put it, about practical spirituality. So I hope you enjoy the episode as much as we enjoyed recording it.

Brad:

You probably can notice that I do not sound like someone who should be doing a podcast today. My voice is a little damaged from some coughing I'm fine, but we just had such a juicy, awesome topic to get into that I kind of just couldn't wait. So I apologize, I'm going to sound kind of raspy throughout, but I'm excited to be talking today with Brielle Goheen. Brielle is a Personal and Spiritual Development Coach, and this is a field that you've kind of gotten into in the last few years and it's really expanded. It's kind of rewritten your understanding of everything in a lot of really good, healthy, exciting ways, and I've been there. I've been there for a whole process and it's changed my views a lot as well. So today, what we want to talk about is personal development, or personal growth, and from this kind of a perspective that you've been calling practical spirituality. So why don't we talk a little bit about how a person should develop? What's the industry like? Like what you know is this self-help?

Brielle:

Yeah, I struggled for a while to know what category to put myself in, because I don't quite fit in the self-help industry, because I think a lot of that is just toxic. It's hustle culture, it's do more, do better. It's punitive, it doesn't really hold a lot of space for self-compassion. And so if you're trying to get more done or live in a way where you're more mobilized and you go to, you know, self-development or self-help for that, it's not gentle and it ends up you add all kinds of expectations onto yourself to do better and be better and you will fail. And I don't want to participate in that. I don't want to participate in holding up a standard for people and for myself either, a standard that is unachievable. So I don't fit in that world.

Brad:

It sounds kind of like the self-help industry can be a lot like diet culture, yes, where it's like a person has a desire to do better, to improve their life and what they end up getting is a new list of demands and burdens. So it's like they were already struggling, and then on top of that you heap a bunch of a bunch more requirements, so it's like failure is almost more inevitable.

Brielle:

Absolutely yeah, and I think it also parallels diet culture as well, in that very, very often, the goal or the thing it is that you're desiring to achieve is also something that's been placed on you, which is why you were struggling in the first place, because that is not necessarily a goal or a desire that you actually have from a real internal place of being self-led, but it's something that you a goal or something to achieve that has been placed on you by culture, and that's why you're struggling. You're struggling because you actually yourself is not aligned with the expectations that you have of yourself.

Brad:

Yeah. So it sounds like if you don't know what, what you actually are expecting of yourself or what you want, then you're just trying to. You're trying to help yourself, be more like something you don't even really want to be Exactly.

Brielle:

You're trying to make yourself be more like something that you're not. And this is why I think personal development needs to go hand in hand, must go hand in hand with spiritual development, because as you delve the depths and the treasure cave of who you are created to be and the person that you are and the things that you have to offer the things that you offer when you don't even know that you're offering them to other people, because that's just who you are, from a very, very central place the more that you start delving into those places, the more that you realize and can define what you uniquely have to offer. And then you get into the personal development, and then you get into creating systems so that every area of your life, in every area of your life, you are living that out. So that that is personal development is when you are living out your calling, your unique calling, to the fullest in every area, and that can only come alongside spiritual development.

Brad:

Wow. So what does it look like? When just can you create a scenario of what it looks like when a person is working on self-development but they have not done that interior work, where they haven't figured out, like who they were created to be or their calling? Like what's one scenario that that plays out in?

Brielle:

Well, I can tell you, it leads to burnout and it will absolutely guarantee ending failure.

Brad:

And failure being like ultimate failure, you could be convinced that you need to be in some kind of business venture and investor, let's say, in order to have like a high, full-lupin lifestyle. I don't know why I'm talking like it's 1920.

Brielle:

Because you've got a rasp and you're like see.

Brad:

But yeah, that person might become financially successful if they go down the path, but they will not achieve any kind of satisfaction or peace.

Brielle:

Yeah, so go one layer deeper. Why do they want that financial success? It's because they want to feel important, they want to feel needed, they want to feel powerful. Maybe they want freedom in their life, maybe they desire respect. There's all kinds of reasons that somebody might go down that path of wanting to be very, very wealthy.

Brad:

So let's say all of those things are good. Wanting respect just makes sense. Wanting security, wanting belonging what was the other one? You said Everything that you're saying what we would think of as good.

Brielle:

Yeah, absolutely so. Then it's like okay, so you desire those things because you feel like you do not have them now. Okay, so let's start there. Let's start at that real foundational place of like why do you not feel free? What are the things that you are feeling, found by that? You try them on or you're wearing them and it feels like you're wearing a straight jacket. Can we trade that straight jacket for something that actually allows you to move and be and do the things that you're able to do with freedom? Or, if you desire more agency, okay, what are the situations that you're in that leave you with no agency, and some of them are going to be circumstantial. Okay, so that is a real thing.

Brielle:

So what are we going to do to move in this space? Just to provide just a little bit more agency, to take agency wherever you can. And the thing is that, as you take those little bits of agency that you can take, more will appear Like you'll be able to have more agency in other areas of your life and you'll be able to like steer clear of situations that rob you of your agency and maybe find places where you can fight systemic things that are taking your agency away, along with other people that are also fighting the systemic things that are taking your agency away. So there's no fault in this. It's all just like, a bit by bit, beginning to feel out where are places that I can actually find just a little bit more of this thing, that I need to continue growing, and maybe it's not in me.

Brad:

Right. So where my mind initially goes is it sounds like this practical spirituality has a lot to do with creation, like how we were created, and that seems really important, that it's a creational type of spirituality. My mind initially goes to agency. Is agency itself is a good. It's like a tree. It's a good thing, right. But then my mind is like agency towards what? Like what are you utilizing this good thing agency to do? Because it sounds like you can make that same error where you're like I desire more agency and you're not thinking about, I guess, like where that's moving.

Brielle:

Absolutely so. You said this is all about creation and you said it's about who we're created to be, and that is absolutely true. But it's about creation on another level as well. It's about who we're created to be and what we are created to create. You know, what is it that we are wanting to create as creators of?

Brad:

As makers.

Brielle:

As makers, yeah.

Brad:

Because the part of being a human is to make things.

Brielle:

And I think that is the question of where does the agency get directed right. What are you here to create? And the question that I love to ask is who do you seek to serve and what change do you seek to make in the world?

Brad:

Right.

Brielle:

Because we can't serve everybody, we can't change everything, but if all of us are doing the work of making the change that we seek to make in the world in little ways, that's how the world changes.

Brad:

Right. So then it becomes extremely important to figure out what you're here to make, and is that where a lot of self-help and personal development? It doesn't go there, like it doesn't go to that bedrock place. What are you here to make?

Brielle:

I think there's a lot of assumption in the self-help world that what you are here to create as well and physical perfection, influence.

Brad:

You mean like physique.

Brielle:

Yeah, right, yeah, influence ease. There's a lot of assumptions that these are the things that people want to create in their lives, but I think more often than not those are actually just facades for deeper things that we want to create.

Brad:

This makes me think a lot of the Mimetic Desire book that's by Luke Burgess, but it's Renaissance art, right? Yeah, that we mimic what we see. You can correct me if I have it mistaken, but we see someone else feeling happy, and so we think that we need to have the job and the things they have. What we really want is happiness, and that we mimic their lifestyle to hopefully get up their happiness.

Brielle:

And here's the thing is that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, we know that these things do not make people happy. Yeah, like, the data is there, again and again and again and again, the things that we think make us happy do not make us happy, and even if they make us marginally happy for a minute, we acclimatize to that almost instantly and now are not happy by it.

Brad:

Right, yeah, how many movies and books have to come out with the same storyline, where a person has some journey to understanding the things that really matter? Right, they want it all along.

Brielle:

Right. But here's the thing is that I think even often that narrative isn't complete either, because maybe that narrative doesn't take that seriously enough.

Brad:

Right.

Brielle:

Because if you are desiring something, you need to ask the questions of why am I desiring this and what am I actually desiring?

Brielle:

In some of these movies, I feel like it's like a happenstance that they happen upon this thing that they really wanted all along or something, they just happen upon it, where I think we can actually go on that journey very, very intentionally, of what is the difference between the life that I see in the future and the life that I'm currently living, and what is that gap and what are the deep things that I desire about that life? Like, let's get beyond the things that you end up having from that life. Who is the person that you are in that future, because that's probably a lot closer to what you're desiring? Are you a person that really speaks their mind and feels safe to speak their mind? And maybe you, in your mind, are associating that with having a perfect physique, because in your mind, only people that are physically perfect have the right to speak their mind. What if you can claim that right now?

Brad:

Wow. And then a healthier physique can follow.

Brielle:

Maybe If you so desire, but then know how much time and effort that's going to take, and maybe what you actually desire is just being mostly healthy. Maybe that's truly what you desire being mostly healthy and being able to be mobile as you get older. Avoid some of the big health things. Maybe that's actually truly what you desire. Maybe you don't actually desire putting in the amount of work that it takes for perfect physique or wild wealth or whatever it is that you think you desire.

Brad:

Oh, man. Ok, there's two directions I want to go and I'm going to say both of them so I don't forget. One is some of the ways that, in the Western Christian tradition, we have tried to wrangle and control and even neutralize desire like what we want, and the other one is just a simple question, which is what's something a person, if what matters is really going on this intentional journey to decipher and determine who it is you were created to be, what it is you were created to do I want to talk about how does a person start that journey?

Brielle:

How do they know if they're?

Brad:

not dreaming right now, Like what are some of the telltale signs?

Brielle:

OK, let's first talk about where you can start and then let's talk about desire, because I think desire fits into that.

Brad:

OK, so yeah, where can a person start?

Brielle:

I think you also asked how does a person know that they're not in that place of living in alignment with their true self? So that's what you call.

Brad:

is that the way you say it, when you are living in alignment with your true self, because you believe that is what every person is supposed to experience.

Brielle:

Yes, I believe that every person is created for a purpose and we can say yes or we can say no, but I think that our very soul resonates and burns with the purpose and when we say no, we know it. Okay, we like have this feeling of like discomfort in our lives. We have this feeling of not enough, that, no matter what we do, we can't be enough. We can never be enough. We have this feeling that we may be like achieving a lot of things, but you have just this gnawing sense that these don't even matter. This isn't even. Yeah, these things don't even matter.

Brad:

And like a sort of a living hollowness.

Brielle:

Yes, yeah.

Brad:

And a fear Moments that like it's like. There's moments of boredom, moments of like a gnawing sense that something's not right, and then moments of intense fear where you realize your life is limited, your time is short and you aren't who you thought you'd be. You are who you want to be, and that's not something to take lightly at all. Like that's when you know I need to go on a new journey.

Brielle:

Yeah, yeah. So for me I was when I first kind of. It actually took me quite a while, quite a long time, to realize that I wasn't living in a line of purpose. I didn't know and you don't know what you don't know. When you start feeling it, then you need to start taking it seriously, and so I was about every six weeks or so I would break down just like balling my face off, just like what am I doing? I don't want to be doing this.

Brad:

Even though you were doing pretty well.

Brielle:

I was doing well and I literally loved my job. I loved my job and yet every six weeks or so I would just get overwhelmed and I would just have this like reaction against what I was doing even though it was fun and skipping ahead just a little bit. One of the things that I realized over the course of doing my spiritual development work was that the work was really fun, but fun isn't anywhere close to one of my core values Nowhere close.

Brad:

I remember you saying that, because you were and still are, in many ways, a very sought after musician, and I remember you would come home and say how it's so fun or how you love being in front of people, and I thought that sometimes I would think you were touching on what your ultimate desire, your ultimate purpose, but then it would be like just a glimpse and then it would vanish.

Brielle:

Yeah, and that sense of fun.

Brielle:

I think I felt really guilty for that to not be, enough for me, because I know so many people who their jobs are pure drudgery and they would kill for a job where they were having fun and like literally getting to talk to colleagues for half of the work time, just like sitting on a couch like we are chatting and then you go play some music together and then you come back and chat for another hour and then play some music. You know like there's so many people that would kill for that because that's fun and wonderful. But what I realized is that the thing that I loved was getting into conversations with people.

Brielle:

That was the piece that would just turn me on and light me up, where I'd be like if I was with people that were ready to get deep and ready to talk about real things with me. I would come back home and just feel alive. And on days where I was, you know, maybe working by myself, performing in front of people, but by myself, or days when I was, you know, working with people that weren't as engaged, or maybe even just on a gig where there wasn't time to talk, I would come home feeling depleted and tired. And so a huge piece of this the question of like where to start.

Brielle:

I think you have to plumb your childhood and your old age. Those are the two strings to pull on. Those are the two strings to pull on first. So the one that is easiest in many ways is just asking yourself the question what did I love as a child? Similar, like if you're looking for a kind of physical activity that you're gonna actually enjoy instead of it being pure drudgery like. What did you like doing as a kid? Every kid loves moving. So what did you like? Did you like jumping on the trampoline? Did you like dancing? Did you like running? Did you love swimming? Right, right, sports. There's something about childhood and I know not every child gets to experience this freedom, but if you had like a decent, good childhood, then you probably did have a lot of opportunity to explore like ways of being in the world that felt right to you. So what were those things that you did as a kid where you were like this is it right? This is before expectations got heaped on you. What were the things that made you feel alive?

Brad:

Right, feeling alive.

Brielle:

And then the other place to explore is your old age. So exploring kind of imagining, because you know, when you're remembering your childhood you're imagining right. So, using your imagination too, in a way, remember the future.

Brad:

Okay.

Brielle:

So you're remembering a future that hasn't happened yet, but you're kind of using your imagination to go into this space of your old age and you know, maybe you're at the very end of your life and who is there around you and what have you done? And you want to die. Well, everybody wants to die well you know.

Brad:

So this is like what people talk about with regards to a legacy, right, but a legacy can have just as much. A legacy can be just as misguided as a perfect result, Absolutely, or a legacy can be just as wrong for you, the particular legacy you're leaving as having hordes of wealth, or those are easy ones to like fight at push at right. Another one. I was thinking about this with regards to the movies, about a person who goes on a journey and discovers what they really want at the end and it's in the middle class of North America. It is usually a story of rediscovery, of nuclear family.

Brad:

Right.

Brad:

A person is pursuing something at work or something to do with money or something to do with fame, and those are eventually the audience realizes those things are worthless and what really mattered was being a stable, you know, in my case like a stable masculine provider with like a quiet, happy family life, and again, that is in many ways a good thing, but that might not really be the kind of family man you're seeking to be.

Brad:

That itself comes from a particular subculture saying this is what you should want, right, because in a way we're swimming in this world of different guidance. Guidance on what you should want, right, and generally they're pretty reductive, they're limited, they're not the new ones, right, and yeah, some are obviously healthier than others, right, but what you should want versus what you do want. Maybe I'm jumping ahead too much, but that just seems, I don't know. This is where that initial question that in the Western Christian tradition, I think, in a lot of ways it's been an operating program telling us what we should want and that when you want something that is outside of its wheelhouse, generally it's tactic is to say you shouldn't want that Right.

Brielle:

Yeah, yeah, like think of the Christian mystics, right, who had no thought in the world of having a family. It just would not have fit who they were created to be and their job in the world was just complete and utter devotion to God.

Brad:

Right In like a solitary, almost wild way, like almost, in some cases, like an antisocial way, a way that was like weird and unsettling.

Brielle:

Yeah, and the writing that's come from those people, the wisdom that's come from those people, that's their legacy.

Brad:

Right.

Brielle:

And we should be very careful about thinking that that is less than another form of contributing to the world, or that it's greater than.

Brad:

Or that it's greater than.

Brielle:

It's just their contribution, and what is your contribution gonna be?

Brad:

Right, what is your contribution going to be? So this is tough because there's a lot of good guidance on how to process our I just can't not connect calling and desire. Yeah, to me, desire in many ways is the body's way it feels calling Because we tend to speak and we both have been learning this a lot we tend to think that our cognitive brain is in total control, when, in a lot of ways, it's our survival brain, a more ancient part of our brain, that calls a lot of the big shots, like when it really really matters. We think that our mind, our cognitive brain, makes all our choices.

Brielle:

Okay, so let's talk about survival systems for a second. So we have three main survival systems. The first one is the most known one is that your fight flight, freeze, faint fawn. There's various Fs. There was a new one that I heard the other day I don't know if it was, but I never heard it before.

Brad:

There's always various Fs revolved the fight and flight and freeze are the most known. Right Fight flight freeze and that's designed to keep us alive.

Brielle:

It runs off of adrenaline. Primarily. All these systems are very this is very reductive because all these hormone systems are all working together. Neurotransmitters work together. So this is very simplified, but and that's our danger it protects us, it keeps us alive, keeps us alert, it stresses the body in these moments when you need to prepare to run. It makes you able to run, it turns off your cognitive functioning so that every bit of you is in the body, so you can just run and work off of completely off of instinct, until you're safe again.

Brad:

So there's kicks in, kicks in without us thinking or acting, without a. It just a bus comes near you and you back up. You do not think about backing up. Your body backs up Right, exactly. Or maybe you do think about it, but it's not your cognitive brain that thinks it Right. That ancient part of the brain thinks it Right In its way, yeah, which is through feeling and hormones.

Brielle:

Right, right, yeah. Then we have the second survival system, which is we call drive and strive.

Brad:

Drive and strive.

Brielle:

And this one is related to goal, goal seeking, pleasure seeking, and this system is ruled by dopamine. So dopamine is obviously like that's the hit that you get from like sugar or like any kind of like pleasure, sugar, sex, any kind yeah, you get dopamine. Dopamine hits from looking at your phone and seeing that you have a new text message.

Brad:

From buying a new book, watching a show and get a hug from your daughter. All of that releases dopamine.

Brielle:

Yeah, yeah. All those things release dopamine and this, this is one of the things that helps us. Our goal seeking and, you know, striving to achieve things, to get these dopamine hits and to get more of it. And to get more of it is really important in, you know, having the drive to actually build a home to protect yourself from the elements, right, so it's absolutely a survival system.

Brad:

Right, because it's. Yes, it's not the thing protecting you from someone chasing you, but it is the thing that you know gets you out of bed and makes you get food to eat and all of that. It's like it pushes you onward, so it's like a long term survival and a thrive yeah.

Brielle:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brad:

Yeah.

Brielle:

No, we won't use that. Yeah, of course Please do. And then what's so? What's really interesting is that both of these systems, these survival systems and in our society, are just completely off their rockers, so like we are chronically stressed and we are chronically dopamine addicted.

Brad:

So we're in re anxious like, or we're in a free state, yeah, and we just accept it, yeah.

Brielle:

And particularly if you aren't really aligned with your deep sense of purpose, then you are stressed. You are going to be running off of norepinephrine, off of adrenaline to keep you. You know, in this like you're probably frozen in certain aspects and then in a state of fight in other places, and so you're chronically stressed from not being, from not being aligned right, and for me that manifested in breaking down and just tears that could not handle it anymore.

Brielle:

And then that release would enable me to handle it again for another limited time they would build up for a month and then you crash.

Brad:

But that's not sustainable. No, eventually like that doesn't work anymore.

Brielle:

Right and then I became really depressed and that was that was absolutely connected to this. The second one were completely dopamine addicted and I think when we're not living on purpose, we're especially susceptible to dopamine addiction and finding our dopamine rather than in these like really good, lasting, slow release dopamine hits of like real purpose and working towards something. That is difficult but we know like it's good and you get a lot of dopamine from that, but it's like it's like you know, getting getting calories from meat instead of instead of sugar.

Brad:

Right, I know what it's like. It's like it's the difference between so you have water, every person needs water. Every person needs dopamine. It is because sometimes in our new technology like anti-technology conversation, we talk about dopamine as if it's bad Right.

Brielle:

Yeah, and it's not bad.

Brad:

Food is bad. No, it is an essential system that our bodies have been designed to use to live. It helps us clean to life, so we need water. You can get water by hunting for dirty puddles while sitting on the surface.

Brielle:

You could spend your whole life hunting for dirty puddles of water to lay down on and like slurp up, and that would give you water, and maybe not even hunting for them, but just like laying down in an area that has a lot of dirty puddles and rolling from puddle to puddle.

Brad:

Rolling from puddle to puddle, or you could locate a spring, a constant source of fresh, clean, light-giving water. Both the dirty puddle and the spring are water sources. Which one is going to contribute to a more full-bodied health, which one has the last likelihood to be contaminated, which one is something where you could build a home by and power the rest of your life with Some water. Right, it's like they're so radically different. You know it's the same substance.

Brielle:

Yeah.

Brad:

Right.

Brielle:

Yeah, and maybe it takes a little bit of time to find the spring, you know. Then you know where that spring is.

Brad:

You have to go on a journey through the forest to find the perfect spot, the spring, and when you see it, you know. You see it because you see life all around it. It's full of animals, it's full of greenery and foliage and you can say to yourself this and end. I remember because I grew up on the acreage we had. We had a pond in our front yard and my neighbor had a pond in his front yard and his pond was there about the same size. His was always completely coated in green algae and ours had no algae on it, and my mom told me that it was just because ours had a natural spring.

Brielle:

Wow.

Brad:

Because it had a natural spring. It's not like you could see it, but the water was always moving in some way and the algae didn't grow on it Right. So doing that hard work to locate your spring is absolutely essential to a healthy life, whereas you say a life well lit.

Brielle:

Yeah, yeah, and we can get into that a little bit, maybe in a bit about what that means like a life well lit, cause that's a the name of my podcast and something that I talk about a lot, which is also this podcast, which is also this podcast, right Cause I'm going to be sharing this to my podcast as well.

Brielle:

But okay, so we talked about the two survival systems. We haven't talked about the third one yet. Here's the thing is that when you can quiet your stress systems so that you're not constantly running on adrenaline, so that you are actually living in a state where fight, flight and freeze can kick in when it needs to, and then it leaves when it doesn't, and it's just.

Brielle:

It's there as a survival system for when you're in danger, but you are no longer in a place where you are in constant danger. If you can do that and then if you can get your goal seeking your dopamine addiction you can get that begun to be in its rightful place, where you know the things that you're striving for. You know that the things that you're striving for are good.

Brad:

Right.

Brielle:

And you're working, you're chewing the meat right, not eating the sugar. You're going after those things that are going to give you a long lasting slow releasing dopamine and that, when you're able to do that with your first two survival systems and that takes a lot of structure, takes systems to make that happen- it doesn't just take no power. No, you work toward that by creating systems for yourself and by culling away. Instead of adding so a ton of new stuff, you cull away things and there's a whole process behind it.

Brad:

And a system being like, kind of like a computer program, like, if this, then this, like a structure in your life.

Brielle:

Yeah, a structure in your life and for each person that this is slightly different, which is why this is like something that is valuable to be coached through, because every person's where to start and the journey that they go through all of this, there's big points that you have to hit. The journey is going to look different because every person is different, but when you can get these two survival systems under control, you actually I'm not sorry, under control. We keep never getting to the third one, which is just. It's fine, it's just-. I just want to say that by under control.

Brad:

You need in their rightful place, not suppress, or you know what I mean. Like, yeah, if you can get them under control, properly aligned, so that you're not in a state of intense, like adrenaline soaked survival and you're not like in a constant top state of like unhealthy strife, you can quiet those. Yeah.

Brielle:

We have a third survival system and this survival system is equally powerful, if not more powerful than the first two, because it runs off of oxytocin and that's our most powerful bonding hormone. It's the hormone that floods our system when we have a baby, right, when we are in love. This is our oxytocin that is bonding us to each other. So this survival system is called 10 and the friend. It's a survival system because the tribe, right, the health of the tribe, will directly affect your own survival. So it's a survival system. It's really important and really powerful, just as powerful and important as the first two. But the other two will take precedence. So if there's a lion, your body is gonna go into that first. Fight, flight, freeze, right. If there's something that directly affects your survival past the next 30 seconds, that is gonna take over.

Brad:

It's like it overrides. It's kind of bonding yeah, or like feelings of love.

Brielle:

Right Dopamine, dopamine. You need to eat every single day, and that is a place where you get dopamine right. You get dopamine, and the reason that you get those dopamine hits is because your body knows it needs to survive, and it needs to eat to survive. So constantly having dopamine every single day is really important, and so that survival system also needs to be running. It's one that's really important as well For you guys to be filming along.

Brad:

Yeah, but if you're not getting dopamine, it will kick in and make you find it somewhere.

Brielle:

Exactly, yeah, so this is where people who skip meals or, like they starve themselves, they binge, eat right Because they need that. And their body is screaming for it. It's not just hunger Most people can skip meals and be fine. It has to do with the dopamine and it has to do with all that that. Your body is screaming for that, and so you will get it in the quickest way that you can, and so people binge on sugar or whatever it is right On the phone or the show or whatever.

Brielle:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's tons and tons of parallels, right. So I kind of think of it as, like your first survival system has to do with surviving the next moments. Your second survival system has to do with surviving the next day, and so those are immediate. If those are not aligned, if those are in danger, then your third survival system is more about, like, long term. This is about surviving the next month, the next year, the next decade, passing on the survival to your children, generational survival. So this third system is incredibly important, but it will get hijacked. If you're not going to survive the next day, then what does the next month matter, right? So the first two get priority, but not because they're more important. So our tendons to friend system is incredibly important, and this is where it gets really beautiful. Humans are literally biologically, evolutionarily, designed to take care of each other. When we have enough, we are designed to share. But we won't share if we're dopamine addicted. We won't share if we're chronically stressed.

Brielle:

We will only share if we're able to activate our tendons to friend when those other things are taking care of. And this is again, this is the practical spirituality right. If we can get your life to a place where it feels calm. You're not adding things in like guilt that you need to do this for somebody or like, oh, I haven't. Like, oh, I should make a meal for somebody. And you're so stressed about it, like, oh, I forgot to do that. Oh, I need to. And then you're constantly trying to take care of people from this place of stress Like no or guilt.

Brielle:

Yeah yeah, Take care of people from a place where you are like just naturally doing it.

Brad:

So do you think, if we get our survival systems humming along properly, that we will just start to be more caring and sharing almost automatically?

Brielle:

Yes, and I also believe that it will look more unique and the way that you care for somebody will be different than the way somebody else cares for somebody, and that we, all of us together, taking care of each other in the way that feels like natural and right and joyful to us, is what makes a humming healthy, good society where everybody is taking care of and nobody is living outside of what they are created to do Like. I have ways that I am able to uniquely take care of people and love people.

Brad:

And enrich their lives, making, yeah, life better, more beautiful, more full and thick and healthy.

Brielle:

And a lot of the things that are stereotypical, especially for women, in terms of caring for other people. I'm just not gifted in and I don't find a lot of joy in it.

Brad:

You don't want to do it? Yeah, on your best day.

Brielle:

On my best day. I don't want to do it.

Brad:

But you don't go to cooking as a way to. That's not you loving others in its fullness.

Brielle:

I don't show my children love by cooking them beautiful meals and I know so many people that do that. That's a natural, joyful, beautiful place For me. I show my kids love in so many ways and when I'm cooking for them, I'm providing for their nutritional health and their survival. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's not a way that I'm like. I don't really feel that I'm like expressing my love through this like home cooked dinner, like I'm heating up a couple of things that are going to take care of the nutritional needs. And I will show my love in a ton of other ways.

Brad:

And so that's what I meant earlier about certain traditions. I tell you what you should want as a human. You should be here in the Christian world. You should love your neighbor. We don't hear that you will love your neighbor. Yes, Automatically if your life is aligned. But that makes so much sense with a creator who designs a world a particular way. Yes, and when things are aligned, things work.

Brielle:

Yes, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Right? You will love your neighbor as you learn to love who you have been created to be.

Brad:

You will, and as you learn to love the creator and love the one who created this beautiful masterpiece of life and a shadow side is not only will you love your neighbor when you come to love yourself, you will love your neighbor as you do love yourself. So if you don't love yourself, if you hate yourself and fight against yourself and load yourself, you actually are incapable of loving your neighbor properly. And there, by extension or by an overlapping layer, you are actually loving God.

Brielle:

And to bring that back to the survival systems if you hate yourself, you're not going to survive the day, so you're in stress. If you hate yourself, you're not gonna survive the you know the moment. You're not gonna survive the day, so your dopamine and your stress are gonna be out of whack seeking, yeah, Striving. Yeah, and so then you will not. So this is in the Bible, it's in a lot of wisdom traditions, this idea right.

Brad:

This central love yourself, love others, love coffee.

Brielle:

Yeah, yeah, and it's also literally built into our biology.

Brad:

Of course it is, of course I know, and the fact that that's like news or that that could even be controversial, right, yeah, it's built into our biology. Oh, so you're just saying we do it because of our biology? Yeah, not just, but we certainly do, right, love others when things are properly aligned, yeah, so okay, this is really exciting on two fronts. One I'm really interested in talking about to more people, about a theology of survival, because I don't think we've taken that seriously enough.

Brad:

I think in the Christian world and in the Western tradition background is it has been so anti-material in practice, so dualistic in practice. We'd have some traditions that have been like no, the body is good, no, creation is good, and that's the tradition we have found ourselves in, but in practice it's still often anti-body and anti-creational and because of the evolution thing that's been so controversial for the last 100 years, it's totally detracted and meaningful theology from being stated right, because it's just been this fight that we should be afraid of. But it's like the theology of survival seems essential to actually understanding how to be more spiritually hot. Right, and also for what this world you're going into, this practical spirituality, our biology, our neurology, our spirituality they all seem to be extremely woven together. You know they all like you shake this chain and something rattles over here.

Brielle:

Yeah, and I think this is one of the reasons why it helps to have a guide through the process. I wish so much that I had had a guide through my process because I think I even with like certain friends, like as I started becoming friends with people that were like further along in this journey than I was, I feel like my own growth started growing like leaps and downs and so being able to have, you know I was as I was going through this journey of discovering my purpose and how to live that out and how to live a life that was, you know, powerful but not overwhelmed, and purposeful, but still feeling like full of ease. As I was going on that and you know, from a place of being just completely not aligned with my purpose, not aligned with who I was created to be, and also living like in like spaces that were completely disorganized as a result, just being completely overwhelmed by my own, the chaos in my own mind. Right as I was going through this journey, I was going off of instincts and so I would think like what is the next question that I have? And then I would read as many books as I could, because it turns out there's books to answer every single question that you have. And so I would read books until I had enough that I felt like, oh, this is my path forward, and then I would take a step. And then I would have another question and then I would ask, you know, ask the question and, you know, think about it and mull it over and read books and try to gain as much wisdom as I could until I found the right thing that actually like fit that question. And then I would take another step. And so I wish that I had had a guide, which is one of the reasons why that's what I decided to do, Because I want to be able to save people some of the time and the struggle, because I have a framework for it, and this is the lit life that you were talking about.

Brielle:

Like my podcast is called a life well right, and my framework, my program, is called lit life, and there's a whole lit life course suite that goes through so many different areas of life, that kind of need to come into alignment. So the L stands for having like, a lucid sense of purpose, like so, so clear and also so inspiring and dreamlike and just incredibly well-defined. A lucid purpose.

Brielle:

And then creating intentional systems from that place, because we can create systems all day and it means nothing. I have no interest in teaching people how to create systems in their life if they don't have any desire to align that with a deeper sense of purpose, because then I'll just be helping you to have a really beautifully designed method means nothing. I don't want to do that. That's just staving off the eventual, inevitable question of what am I doing Right? And because you can have a life that's so well managed that you don't ask that until you're 70 years old, 60 years old, whatever it is.

Brad:

So you could have a system, a beautiful factory like system, that, with extreme precision and efficiency, attach a clown nose to the bottom of a shoe and it could pump up 500,000 a day and you would eventually be like why am I making these?

Brielle:

Right, exactly, exactly, exactly. I love that analogy. Yeah, so a lot of the, so the. You know, we in the coaching program we spend a lot of time on the L right, the least of purpose. Because if we don't have that defined, then what are we doing this off for?

Brad:

At least having it like come into formation.

Brielle:

But really that work can be done in a matter of weeks, like two weeks.

Brad:

Just defining your why or your purpose.

Brielle:

Yeah, and then you have like a good working draft and that will change over the next few months as you like replace certain words or like Try them on as you always say yeah, you try on the words to see if they fit right. But you'll have like a basic framework within a couple of weeks that you're then working from and then the majority of the time is spent on these intentional systems. The I intentional system.

Brad:

Because now you know why, you know what your factory is making.

Brielle:

Yeah, yeah, so how do we make this thing better? What are the systems that we need in place to make this thing better in and to make things like easier, so that you're not like running from the West end of the factory to the East end of the factory with forever piece that you make right, so you're not like running spinning your wheels unnecessarily. And then the T stands for targeted action, right. Once you've got the systems in place, then you begin doing, and when you are taking targeted action it's not frenetic, it's not. You don't become exhausted.

Brielle:

It's not putting out the spider and not fire and not fire, Right yeah, you're ahead of things and you're taking this targeted action, then that targeted action it's slow and slow and smooth and smooth. As fast as Greg McEwen says right, it's one of my favorite quotes. So slow, peaceful ease, all of those things are possible, but only when we're living from the inside out, only when we're living from the lucid purpose to creating intentional systems, to taking targeted action.

Brad:

Oh man, this is the future and this stuff. Thank you so much for chatting with me.

Brielle:

And cause this is going on my podcast too. Thank you, brad, so much for chatting with me.

Brad:

Thank you for being here.

Brielle:

And thank you for being here.

Brad:

Brad, we'll talk to you again soon. Yeah, I love you.

Brielle:

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you found this episode helpful, then share it with someone else who might find some encouragement in it as well, and if you haven't already, subscribe so that you're the first to know each time a new episode is released. I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast that I love creating systems that support people in living a fully lit life. One of the areas that a lot of people struggle with is their email inbox, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot, a lot. Over 40% of email users struggle with hundreds of unread emails, so I've created a training to teach you how to beat inbox overwhelm once and for all and get that coveted inbox zero in 60 minutes or less. It gets even better. The training is completely, 100% free. Check it out at wwwworkwithbrielgohincom. You can also find the link in the show notes.

Brielle:

I have hundreds of simple systems just like this that can help you become sustainably productive, to get things done with ease and to craft a life that truly supports you in the things that matter the most to you. So check out the inbox zero training and, if you like it, connect with me. There's so much more where that came from. Until next time, remember the worlds we imagine are the worlds we build. So imagine the best, most beautiful one you can and get to work building it.