The Congo, Leonard Peltier & Plant Medicine Retreats | Ep 73 | Moral Combat

In episode 73 of the Moral Combat Podcast, hosts Nathan and Zachary dive into an intimate solo discussion, reflecting on a range of poignant topics, from global issues to personal journeys. They kick off by sharing their recent updates on upgrading the podcast's equipment, enhancing the quality of their engagement. Nathan elucidates the historical and ongoing crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo, tracing its roots from Belgian colonization to the exploitation of mineral resources. Meanwhile, Zachary brings light to the plight of Leonard Peltier, a symbol of injustice against Native American activists. Their conversation takes a personal turn as they explore the therapeutic potential of plant medicines, spurred by Nathan's revealing dream about his father at a spiritual retreat, illustrating a profound acceptance of differing beliefs. Zachary shares his struggles with family boundaries over political misinformation, underscoring the evolving dynamics in parental relationships as children carve their own ideological paths. The episode closes on a nostalgic note, with a spirited round of Mario Kart 64, reminiscent of their childhood pastimes post-church.

Video Cast: https://youtu.be/aR50oFo6QW8

Moral Combat, hosted by siblings Nathan and Zach Blaustone, is a heartfelt exploration of life's complexities, with a primary focus on healing from religious trauma. Step into their world as they navigate the realms of music production, confront the lingering echoes of religious trauma, and embrace laughter as a universal healer. With each episode, Nathan and Zach weave together their unique perspectives, seasoned with dynamic personalities that make every discussion an engaging adventure. From unraveling the complexities of personal growth to fostering open communication, healing the scars of religious indoctrination, and embracing the unfiltered authenticity of siblinghood, Moral Combat is your passport to thought-provoking conversations, heartfelt insights, and the pure joy of shared moments. Join us in the combat for morality, one conversation at a time.

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Transcript

0:17

Yo, yo, yo, what up, Moral Combat fans? What's up, everybody? Yo, yo, yo, what up, Moral Combat fans? Yeah, here we are. We're at the Moral Combat podcast. We have our new mic stand. So that's pretty exciting. Yeah, they're sitting on the table. We normally have a hook type of mic stand coming from the right. Yeah, we always have the classic podcast setup that everyone's seen for so long. Headphones, big old boom mics, you know, whatever, like the arms. What's a boob mic? Yeah, boob mics. We're all about boob mics. We're all about boob mics here on the podcast. Here on the Moral Combat podcast, we focus around mainly one major topic that we found very important in our, I don't know, culture and society. And what is that, Zachary? That's religious trauma. Religious trauma. Indeed. Because we were raised in a Christian, evangelical, radical church and family. Yes. No longer identifying as Christians for a long time now. Quite some time now, yeah. And yeah, quite some time. Quite some time. Long enough to not necessarily feel it at all. But, uh... Trauma can run pretty deep, and so we find it really important to talk about that. That's what this podcast is all about. It's about talking about our trauma, which isn't, like, you know, always fun and exciting. It's not politics. It's not comedy. That's fine. That's what we do here. And recently, we've been able to have on lots of guests, which has been fun. Yeah. And this will be our first solo podcast, meaning just us two, my brother and I, my brethren, Zachary, for a minute. It's been a long time. Yeah, we're doing interviews for a minute now, and so kind of having a solo cast is quite nice. Yeah, like new mic stands, no headphones. That's a tough one for me. I'm struggling with the no headphones. Yeah, I know. It's different, but it's good because we got to stay with the times. Yeah. And if you're watching this right now, you'll probably notice from other podcasts that there's less headphones and certain things being used because it's more intimacy. Yeah. You know, we're just having a conversation. Yeah. We're getting away from that radio show. Yeah. Which is good, but it'll take some time to get used to. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you for sticking with it. Thanks, man. Sticking with the times. Thanks, man. Zachary and I used to do solo podcasts. That's all we ever did for a very long time. Yeah, come on. We were actually, like, really tired of doing solo podcasts together. And then we were super excited. I mean... We've had so many wonderful interviews, and now we're super excited to be alone. Nothing against the interviews. No, we've had so many wonderful guests. We've made so many friends, and we have a lot of interviews coming after this cast, like, over the next month and a half, planned stuff. But we were just, we would shoot this shit every week. Every weekend, it was about getting together and hanging out as brothers and just building our relationship. So much of our relationship has been saved because of this podcast. Yeah, 100%. 100%. But the tough thing is, is talking about religious trauma, just us, 70 episodes. I know, but some of the... It's hard. Some really good episodes. Oh, yeah. We broed out hard. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we just, we dropped the shit. Yeah. And when you invite other characters or other people, personalities that come from different traumas and different experiences, you know, that aren't white bros like us, you got to match people where they're at. And you got to give people the space. You got to give people the voice. And so, you might get a little different energy today. You might get a little different flair. I would hope so. Yeah. We're just the same. I hope we have more to give. Yes. How are you doing, man? I'm doing... This is the best day of my life. Never had a better day. Yeah. I'm feeling... I mean, you're wearing a black v-neck. Thanks. Your necklace is tucked. Just got it from Costco yesterday. Did you really? Yeah. I was wondering why it looked so wrinkly. No, I'm just kidding. It looks very clean. It's like brand new. It's brand new. It's really disrespectful. I'm wearing a white piece of cloth. Yeah. Last time we had an interview, Nate wore the tightest muscle shirt you could find. I did. I busted out my black muscle. And I, you know what? I know that podcast is out now and you can go, you can pause this right now and go check it out. That's fine. I'm not going to judge you. Yeah. You should have what you should have a picture probably. No. But, um, yeah, I wanted to switch it up. Mainly the reason why I switched it up wearing my white cloth is because I am two days out from my plant medicine retreat. Indeed. And that's coming up in literally two days, which is a rather intense... intense and exciting healing journey that I'll be going on once again, uh, with a big group of people. It'll be really nice. We'll get into that later, but I'm trying to really enter into my purity here, trying to really come as I am. Come as you are. Come as you are. Yeah. Sing some worship right now. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I am God. You are God. We are God. Everything and everyone is God. Yes. And if you're a Christian watching this right now and that scares you, do me a favor and comment because we love that shit. Yeah. We love it when you comment that our podcast scares you and you want to share the Christ with us. Or how we got it wrong. Yeah. Because we didn't read our Bible. I'm going to say it again. I am God. You are God. We are God. Everything and everyone is God. A hundred percent. Um, let's jump into it today. Indeed. Let's get into it. Let's go. One of the things that, um, we both very much feel called to in our podcast here is this is a public display of ourselves. Um. Um, and so we want to use our voices whenever we can for anything that we become aware about in our history or in our world that strikes us, that feels important to be sharing through our platform. We've, uh, had a huge segment on Palestine and that conflict that affects all of us. And we were very wonderful to have a guest by the name of Andy who shared a whole history lesson on everything about that. Um. Um, and we should really do more about that too. I mean, we just don't have any solo podcasts to be able to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So because this is our first solo podcast in a long time, we both over the last, you know, months have become more aware of some things, Zach being in school. And then, uh, just my, me and my own time, things that we really want to bring to this cast. I guess I'll go first with my topic. Go for it, baby. And it's kind of hard sharing these things on our cast because we're just going to snip it. We're just going to drop some shit. It's not that deep. It's just bringing awareness to the conflict or whatever's going on that strikes us. It's also just trying to use our platform in the best way we possibly can. If we want to be part of activist movements or bringing awareness to things, you have to use your resources and this is our resource. We've built this resource for a long time and so this is what we want to use it for. Exactly. Um, and there's so much I have to learn, want to learn more about this and I'm, you know, not spending that much time learning about it. And so I do feel guilty, like becoming more aware of our histories. And I know that like our country hasn't done the greatest job at allowing international world history to be like presented to us in school. What are you talking about? And so... We have freedom of information here, Nathan. I know. It's everywhere. And it's, everything's perfect in America. And so I, um, I try not to put too much pressure on myself, but it's hard not to. We are so lucky. Me and Zach have had it so easy in life. Um, being a white man has been probably the easiest road of life for thousands of years and becoming more aware of that and how that looks is treacherous sometimes. So here we are. I'm going to talk about what's going on in the Congo. I have this whole printout of information and Zach looked at it and he was like, man, that's a lot. So I'm just going to touch a little bit on what's going on in the Congo. There's been a genocide going on in the Congo that for a long time and the history is, uh, really horrific when you look at what's been going on in the Congo for the last almost 200 years. And so here we go. We really don't want to talk about what's going on currently. And so I'm just going to give you a little snippet back in like the 1800s, 1885 specifically to about 1908. There is a time called the Congo Free State. This is when King Leopold II of Belgium, um, brutalized the area, right? This is a part of, this is Africa we're talking about. Okay. Okay. But he really wanted to leave. I mean, Leave the man who made all the things, don't eliminate that part of the Congoionist and he lived in here for a long time, right? Uh, the觉 tutto something k go k t k w u u u i ə y k w w y ı o area for like 30 years was a horrific dictator that just decimated their own people. This is a very complicated conflict, so it's not like I'm touching much on it besides just bringing some awareness to the history. One of the things that I was reading and I wrote down on here is during that 30-year regime that Mambutu had, he established a kleptocratic regime that lasted over three decades. His rule marked corruption, severe human rights abuses, and the use of state resources for personal gain. So you had the white man that came in and decimated the area for resources, and then you had the people there that basically learned from that behavior and decimated their own people for those resources because capitalism, baby! Capitalism has ruled the world, and so it afflicts everybody. This is what I found really interesting is during that time, during the Cold War, all the atrocities that Mambutu and his clan and people that ruled the area, there was a ton of support from the Western countries. Of his ruling there, of course, of course, of course, dude, because Mambutu was specifically an anti-communist and what was going on during that time? Stuff with Russia. And so even though he was decimating his own people, rape, murder, at least he's anti -communist, you guys come on, right? So during that time, instead of like our country or any sort of the country is wanting to do anything about it to bring hopefully help or anything, they were like, no, no, no, he's anti-communist, let him decimate his own people. Which is just fucking classic. Then there was a time called the Great African War, or the Second Congo War. This conflict involved multiple African nations and numerous armed groups, leading to a complex and deadly war over control of the DRC's rich mineral resources. The war and its aftermath including mass killing, sexual violence, and other atrocities affecting millions of people. So there's the history. What are we talking? Like, hundreds of years of just terror. Okay? That's embedded in the history there. It's embedded in... It's like emplaced trauma just in all of that area. And, you know, all stemming from the white man's just destruction of it in the beginning. So, what's going on now? As of 2024, the situation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the DRC, especially in the eastern regions, remains critical and is marked by ongoing conflict and a severe humanitarian crisis. There has been insane intense fighting. Recent months have seen a resurgence in violence, particularly in North Kivu Province. The M23 rebel group, which has been largely dormant for several years, has reemerged and taken control of significant territories. So, there's been like a resurgence of this violence. The conflict has also involved various other armed groups and government forces with frequent skirmishes and battles leading to further instability. The violence in eastern DRC is fueled not only by political and military struggles, but also by ethnic tensions and competition for control over rich mineral resources. The conflict has also involved various other armed groups and government forces with frequent skirmishes and battles leading to further instability. Cobalt. Why rich mineral resources? Capitalism, baby. There's money in this shit. They're killing one another for money. Like really evil men. Just destroying whole areas for fucked up just terrible things. These minerals are crucial for global electronics industry, adding an international dimension to the conflict like you said. The Tesla I really, really, really want. I really want to turn this into something totally new. Tesla, iPhones, all of it, yeah. And it's like, everything we're using here, really, right? It's like, there's so much that goes back to this history and what's going on right now. And, but I bring up Tesla's because let's be real, like, what has been taking over the world is these electric cars. And everyone wants an electric car. I really want an electric car. Yeah. Yeah. Capitalism doesn't care about human life. No. Money. Yeah. It's like that. Don't look up where the meteors coming in. And they're like, well, let's let it hit. Yeah. Because we can make a bunch of money. And they end up just destroying. It's like, oh, they're just like, everything's about like going to the meteor and trying to explode it to, you know, trillions and endless amounts of money. Oh, man. So there's been insane mass displacement. The conflict has displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Um, within the DRC, many are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including shelter, food, water, and medical care. Reports of human rights abuses are widespread, including sexual violence, killings, and the recruitment of child soldiers. The chaotic situation has made it difficult for victims to receive justice or support. The UN and NGO efforts, the United Nations, through its peacekeeping missions, uh, MONUSCO, M-U-M-O-N-U-S-C-O, continues to play a significant role, although it faces challenges due to the complex security situation and political constraints. The UN and NGO efforts, the United Nations, through its peacekeeping missions, uh, MONUSCO, M-U-M-O-N-U-S-C-O, continues to play a significant role, although it faces challenges due to the complex security situation and political constraints. Non -governmental organizations are active but are often hindered by security concerns and funding shortages. There have been ongoing efforts by regional bodies and international partners to mediate and propose solutions to the conflict, but progress has been slow and often disrupted the new outbreaks of violence. The DRC's situation remains one of the most complex humanitarian emergencies in the world, with a continuous need for international attention and support to prevent further deterioration of the crisis. Um, and then I was reading... That's it. That's all I wanted to say about it. There's so much... Please go online, find, uh, resources to do your own research, become more aware of this with intent, like, do your part. I don't know. Be aware of this shit. And I was reading some personal stories through, uh, I think it's called the Global Watch or the something, International Watch. And, yeah, I, like, stopped reading them because it's just, there's so much rape and there's so much murder. Um, you know, like, priests. It's in different religious people, like, going back into these areas and burying the dead bodies, just up to the thousands. Mm-hmm. And so, um, there is a lot of atrocities happening on our planet. All over. 24-7, dude. A lot of loss of human life. Um, and before I go on this plant medicine journey, you know, it's really easy for me to really, like, kind of hate humanity. And that's not the energy that I want going into this. I think one of the blessings... I think one of the blessings about the trip I'm about to take, which we can get into more later, helps me find more peace and serenity being a human. Mm-hmm. Because we're all part of this earth together. It's like, planets, uh, plants, animals, humans, we're all in this together. And, but humans are just detrimental to each other. And it's really hard to understand. It's absolutely senseless. And there's so little we can do here. So that's why I wanted to bring it up. Well, this is, this is what we can do here. Yeah. There, there you go. Talk about it. There you go. Yeah. That's my part. Yeah. All right. What atrocity do you want to talk about? Um, yeah. Free the Congo, dude. A hundred percent. I am not going to have nearly as much information as you. Um, I could have, but I, I wanted to be just a little more straight to the point and quick. That's fine. Do whatever you want. Um, I wanted to talk about a man by the name of, uh, I want to pronounce it right. I've heard it pronounced different ways. So if I mispronounce it, I apologize for anyone listening. But it's a Lennard healthier. He, um, was a native American activist from long time ago in like the seventies. There was a huge movement for, uh, native Americans and fighting for freedoms. And the government was just, oh man, you said the sixties. Well, it was like through the sixties into the seventies, like civil rights. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a lot of movements going on. This was one of them. Um, he, he was part of the, the crew of people. And I wish I kind of. I did take some more notes to throw out some other names cause there's other very known names, but they took over, um, Alcatraz here in San Francisco. Um, in early seventies, late sixties and occupied it. I think it was, I think it was for like 19 months, 18 months, something like that. And then it kind of fell through, but, um, like in a way to like reclaim the land. Yeah. Reclaim the land because the government had the Indian relocation act where they were forcing Indians off the reservation, um, and into society. And so, wow. Um, which they, our government will tell you that they were trying to help them get jobs. And so they provide some housing, they get them into a job and you take you, you oppress someone enough and you throw them into this society. They're just, they're not going to be able to take their whole entire way of living for thousands of years away. And you're like, live by the white man now. Yeah. Live and live in this. That's called colonialism. That's colonials. They get, they get, anyone would be overwhelmed by it. Um, and then we funnel alcohol into their societies and get them addicted. To the shit. And then we say, look, they don't know better. And it's just our government, man. It's just, I don't need to get into that, but he, um, Leonard, uh, Leonard, Leonard was, uh, a part of the activism that went to Alcatraz, took it over. And then, um, that sparked a lot of movements around, um, the United States. And it started the American Indian movement, the aim. I'm pretty sure it's the American Indian movement. Um, but then just long story. Short activist movement after activist movement was happening. And, um, there was a shooting at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation. Um, and I want to say it's in North Dakota or South Dakota. Yeah. And, um, it, he was falsely accused of killing two officers. And if you go into further details, um, these officers were trying to trace someone else who stole some boots. And so they went on the reservation and it caused a firefight and they got. Killed. They couldn't prove anyone who did it, but, uh, Leonard from being in many different activists movements that were happening at the time. He got on America's hit list for the government. Most wanted to get in prison as soon as possible because he had a huge pull and was motivating a lot of people and doing a lot of good, as I would say. And so he got on their, their hit list. And so they used him because he was in the firefight. Technically, he was in the area. They used it to imprison him and they, uh, tormented. Some women to pretend to be his girlfriend, testify him in court and say they saw him do it. And he didn't do it. He's been in prison ever since. And it has been 47 years. And in the late 1990s, they've already proven that he didn't do it. And he's written a couple of books and they prison. Yep. And they've tried to get president after president to get him out of prison. And the last president to deny it was Barack Obama. Why did, do you know why he denied it? Cause our government is as correct. As it gets to, um, and there's secrets beyond, and I'm not here to be a conspiracy theorist, but if you just review our history, we do not care about other people. We care about money. And if you're a Democrat or Republican, all we really care about is money. And it's a big problem, but, um, there's many names that have tried to, um, get clemency or per, uh, I don't even know how to use that word. Prophecy. Prophecy, but properly, but to, to advocate for him being released like Nelson Mandela, mother Teresa, the 14th Dalai Lama, people are really, uh, fighting to get him out every single new presidency. It's a push to get this president to release him. And I just wanted to bring attention to it because I was reading his book, um, this last week. Uh, it's letters that he wrote in prison. It's called my life is a Sundance and it is just magnificent. The native American population. Have an attack. Have a connection to their spirits and their, um, intuition. Like none of these white men could ever get close to, and to just hear them speak about their cultures and speak about their wisdom, uh, is just baffling. We had a medicine man come to our class on Thursday and speak to the students about the indigenous medicine and, and how he was taught from like five years old. And just like. I'm kind of getting sidetracked here, but, um, no, actually it's good. I think we could like segue right into what I'm doing because exactly everything you're talking about is like exactly the lineage or close to the lineages of things. I'm going back to define healing in right as these like historical practices with medicine and plant medicine and stuff like that. But no, so I'll just, I'll just end it with, uh, we need, we desperately need to free. Uh, Leonard Peltier, a hundred percent. If, if, if he isn't free, there is no one fucking free anymore. And we are starting to see a lot with all the history going on on our daily lives right now, uh, that we are not free in America as they just banned TikTok and continuously passing legislation by hiding it in other legislation. We are not a free nation. We are not a free country and it's incredibly obvious. And there is many more people in prison, just like him on fall. It's accusations that our government is allowing to happen because they want to keep them away when they want to keep tormenting the people. And so freedom, free Leonard Peltier. Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. Yeah. Thanks for that awareness. Um, I didn't know a bit of that. So I was blown away. Um, that I didn't know about it either. That's why, that's why when you were like, I want to break the Congo, I was like, oh, I'll bring up Leonard for sure. Yeah, I got it. I mean, the history, our, our own American history is ruthless. Yeah. Bored and disgusting with the displacement and murder and rape of millions and millions of Americans Indians. So I was in a bookstore with my wife not too long ago and went to that section of the bookstore and was just picking up some books and reading. And it's really hard to read that history, man. It's like hard. It's, it's just, it's hard to be like, you know, I'll say it. Like, I'm not a proud American. I haven't been a proud American for a long time, but like our history doesn't make it easy to be proud to be American. What's there to be proud of? Right. Well, I mean, there's a lot of Americans that are just like, so proud to be American. And I think like, that's the facade that's planted into their brain. Our history, like the stuff going on in the Congo, the stuff going on in Palestine, the stuff going on in the Ukraine. Our country is founded on that shit. Yeah. You know, and there's money being billions of dollars being sent to different areas to hold people in. Power that are ultimately going to keep money flowing into this country and keep this country in power. Yeah. And the banning of TikTok is weird. It's so fucking weird. It's like TikTok might be the closest form and I don't even use it really that much. But like, it's the closest form of some form of free international information, access to free. And the only reason why it is free is because it's not controlled by our government. Yeah. That's like the real eye-opener here. Is all the other social media platforms have direct 100% control by the US government and this one. Or influence at least. Influence. Yeah. And this one just isn't fully controlled or influenced by our government. So they're terrified. And the whole idea that China has our information is like, dude, Facebook has been selling them our information since like the early 2000s. So what's the big worry in like, they don't have our information. I don't know. Yeah. It's just, and it's weird how it was tossed inside a bill to Israel. For aid that was obviously going to pass our government. Yeah, which is disgusting enough. That supports that genocide. And so they already knew that was going to pass and they knew the TikTok was going to cause too much of a controversy. So they snuck it in that one. So much information, so much visual information of what's been going on in that area has come through TikTok, right? Like 100%. So much advocacy and so much being spread on that platform. And so it would just make sense that the government would slide in a bill that's giving Israel billions of dollars and be like, and by the way, we're going to take away the information. Free of information of really what's going on there from our people as well. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also just weird in an election year because the young people don't want any more support for Israel and the young people want TikTok and Biden just approved all of that. And so it's like, cool. So now what the fuck do we do? Yeah. It's absolutely ridiculous, man. Yeah. Well, I guess they can demonetize our platform if they want. That's what they can do. They aren't going to do it. We're used to it. And you know, I know we said we talked about religious trauma. But... We talk about whatever the fuck we want and we bring awareness to what we think is really important here. And so that's what you get here on the World Combat Podcast. Yeah. We wanted to segue right into another topic. But honestly, man, I think it'd be really good just to... No, I think we should talk about the podcast. It's just everything you were just talking about goes right in. And I think it's going to distract from that powerful, like... I didn't even know that you had a medicine man, like an ancient medicine man come in. Dude, it was... That's like the... That's where I'm going. All right. We can talk about this after. But I know this isn't... I know this is really important. I just think that, like, if you really want to talk about... Let's just do it quick then. Let's do it really quick. We... So, go for it. Why don't you spearhead it? We have been wanting to do a lot more with this podcast. And we have... Everything you've seen, everything we've done has been spent on our own dollar. And we have no advertisers. We have no means of capitalistically starting to profit off this podcast. And we haven't even... Because it's not about the money. It's not about the money at all. It hasn't ever been about the money. And we have just been doing this a really long time. We put in... But we really want to do some fun stuff over summer that technically, how do I say, we don't want to drop another, you know, like, handfuls of thousands of dollars. Well, you don't have a job. I don't have a job. You're not working. You've been on disability because you're back for a long time now. You're back in school full time. Yeah. Money is just tight. All I do is work. Yeah. And so, me and Nate have had a couple conversations back and forth on us asking for donations and us not asking for donations and how we would do that. Yeah, we come from, like, definitely two different trains of thought. Yeah. We both think differently. Yeah. Zach's much more analytical. Yeah. Very specific. He's like, how are we going to do this if we're not getting this? And I'm kind of like, fuck it. Who cares? Let's just go for it. Yeah. And so, that blend has caused conflict in our paths. And now that blend causes, like, amazing creativity to get to where we are. And so, it's, like, been really nice. So, we decided, like, oh, you're smart to just bring this up on the cast. Yeah, because we were just not, like, I was like, we should, like, let people know what we want to do and then give people at least an option to donate to us. Not asking people to donate, but just giving people an option. And then Nate brought up that we do have a lot of trauma with the church and tithing, and that's exactly what the church does. Yeah, that's exactly what the church does. We are in this weird place of, like, trying to avoid Jesus complex, trying to avoid all this. Also being like, we want to do a lot more with this podcast. We want to also be like, trying to get more eyes on it. Not even just for ourselves, but just for more people who... Like marketing. Yeah. But not even for the capitalistic reasons. For the reasons of there's... we want just more people to be able to see it. I mean, I think we also want more subscribers. We want more views. Like, we know of the quality show we provide. The guests we're having on are amazing. The stories really matter. None of you know this, but we are getting messages, like, emails or DMs all the time from people that are just telling us how much our podcast has helped them find safety or security, that they're not alone. People that would never want to be on the cast. Yeah. And so, we know that, like, what we've found ourselves doing here matters. Yeah. And we want to continue doing this. And no matter how... Sometimes it can get really hard when you're spending so much time and all of your own money for something that is not profitable. And the thing is, I bring up to Zach all the time, whenever... this conversation can come up a lot. And then we, like, go in waves where it can be kind of tough because things are really hard. We're both struggling financially. And then things change and we have maybe... we're better financially. Yeah. It's not as big of a deal. But our history and everything that we talk about, like... And these things we were advocating for. There have been people, like, that have done podcasts for, like, a decade with no income, no money, and they believe in it. I think I was... there was a podcast called Philosophize This. It's, like, a really popular podcast now. This guy did this podcast for, like, 10 years before any advertising or any money coming in. He just believed in what he did. Now he's got, like, huge advertisers and he's fine. And so, there's stories of how people do this. And I think that Zach and I are in two very different places that doesn't... it doesn't always make it easy for him to be pouring in 30 hours a week, some weeks, into this cast. Most weeks. You know? And for me, it's probably about, you know, realistically, probably about, like, 10 hours a week. But we have different jobs. You're the communicator. I don't... No, yeah. We're really talking. It's about 30 hours, yeah. I do. I do all the short editing and then... but all the postings. So, every single morning, I'm actually live going on every podcast. I mean, for sure. All of, like, what it takes to run a podcast. I think, like, you can see it. We're on every platform. It takes a lot of work. Zach's the guns behind... I won't say guns. Because Zach is the muscle behind, like, all of the analytical, the digital shit. The... I edit the main podcast, but I'm in communication with all of our guests. And everything that we do here, our guests are going through heavy shit. This is heavy shit to come on our podcast and tell your story. We're building... I'm building relationships with all of you. Thank you so much for being on this cast. Yeah, really. And it's brightened my soul. Yeah. And as much... As much as I'm, like, settling the need for purpose and that Jesus complex, I feel like the universe has, like, provided so much relationship, love, and support in my life. Things that I love to be. But it's draining after being in the hospital for eight, nine hours a day, five days a week, and then on phone calls that I really love. But, you know, like, there's just a lot we're putting into this. There's a lot more we want to do. And I do not feel comfortable asking for any of you to donate to our podcast. Whereas Zach, it's not about comfortable or not, right? Tell me if I'm wrong. It's about business. It's about, like, how do we not spend all of our money that goes to, like, mortgage or rent, food, you know, on our podcast, you know, with nothing to show for it financially. Yeah. Well, and I don't look at asking for donations as anything we would use for ourselves. I don't, like, we're not going to pay ourselves back. No, dude, we're going to Morocco. That's the thing, man. We're going to... No, just kidding. No, we have big plans to do some fun stuff over the summer so that we can get guests that can't come in studio. We can go to them. We want to do our first podcast tour. Yeah. And make it a really fun, like, week travel where we go to some different people that would be amazing interviews and amazing guests and travel to them and get another camera, maybe one more mic and probably some more equipment. And it's just tough to continue affording that. Everything we have right now we've bought and we've split most things pretty evenly. There's been a couple of things that you're like, I'm buying it, we need it. And I'm like, I have the money for it right now. But most things we've split and it's been pretty hefty. But again, I'm willing to spend double that again. Because I believe in this podcast. But I want to do something over summer. We want to do something over summer, which is coming up. And so that's why that's where this donation thing came up. But it would never be to pay us back. It wouldn't go into our bank accounts. It would go directly to the things we want to do for this podcast. It'd be like our fourth camera, our fourth mic. It would help pay for a trip to get to these guests. Yeah. But mainly why are we bringing this up is because we legitimately are asking our guests, if you watch this podcast and you care about what we're doing, then we'd ask that you just tell us what are your, when you're hearing us talk about this podcast, what are your thoughts? We're going to talk about this. And like, how do you feel? What do you think of a podcast like ours? What is your encouragement? What would you suggest in ways that we could bring financial awareness to help us produce more, to bring more to the cast? Is donation something that feels safe? Is that too close to tithing? To me, it feels like, you know, people that leave the church, I'm just going to call it out, people that leave the church, deconstruct, and then immediately charge people to find healing. That makes me uncomfortable. And because they're so like, but I pay my therapist, you know, for the healing that I get with him. We ain't therapists. And so, that's not what we're doing here. And we're not trying to be healers. We're not trying to bring anybody answers. And so, it's really hard for us to know how to make money here. We've had a couple advertisers hit us up, and they seemed very promising, and they seemed kind of to fit our podcast. And then when I think they really looked into our podcast, they were immediately like, yeah, no, we don't want to be part of this anymore. Yeah. Because of the nature of what we're doing here isn't like... Fucking Joe Rogan. You know? We're not Theo Vaughn, you know? Even though, like, whatever, these people have, like, great shows, but, like, we're doing something a little bit different here, and we know that. So... Yeah. And it's probably going to take a good amount of time. Until our numbers are at a level to where capitalistic people can be like, we should put our brand on there. I think we have 1,600, 1,600 and something of that subscribers. Yeah, we broke 1,600. Yeah. We celebrate every single time we get another 100 subscribers on YouTube. It's a big deal. It's a big deal, man. I text Nate, Nate texts me, whoever gets it first, and it's like, happy 16, happy 15. My son was like, dad, it's going to take you so long to get your YouTube plaque. I was like... Thanks, son. Thanks, you little Gen Z-er. Really appreciate you, bud. So, I told him we're going to make our own YouTube plaque, and it's going to be identical to the YouTube one, and we're just going to put it up. Oh, that's not a bad idea. And every single... We'd probably get sued. Like, every 2,000, like, 2,000 subscribers, it'll be like, we finally got our YouTube plaque. 2,000. Make it the same plaque, but say, like, 2,000. Yeah, he even said, he's like, you're going to get in trouble if you do that. I'm like, so? That would probably be good for the payout podcast. All right, you ready for this? You want to swap the controllers, and then we'll come back? Sure. So, let me tell you about this medicine man that kind of came into our... Kinda. That came into our... Class. Speech, yeah. Yeah, let's go back before what we just talked about and get into the meat of why we're here today. The solo podcast. Boom! Yeah, I'm actually surprised we actually took as long as we did on that. The important... The important topics we need to talk about. But no, so we had this medicine man... Yeah, if you're still here, thanks. Yeah, thank you so much. That came and spoke to our class, and dude, it was just... It's so spiritual listening to... So, this was a Native American that has a history of, like, handed down medicine. Raised on the reservation. Right. When he was five, he has this wild story, man. When he was five, he took his grandfather on the reservation, and then this other group, this other tribe, like three tribal elders came up to there. Reservation didn't say anything, and they were just sitting off and doing this and something. Like, he painted the picture so well, too. And this guy... Storyteller. This guy's, like, late 80s, dude. Amazing. Like, old elders. Amazing. Wisdom. And his... What a blessing. Grandfather was like, go. Oh, cool. Go out. Go see them. And he was like, no, grandpa, I'm scared. And he was like, you do. You do now. And he was saying that if an elder in their culture ever tells you to do anything, you have to do it. And so, he was like, no. No. And, like, he went through a fit and went and sat next to this elder who was a medicine man, but from the South, which is, like, they know the medicine and they're teachers, the elder teachers. And he, like, turned to the boy, which is him, because he was imitating him like a boy would. You're uncomfortable. And the elder coughs, and so you cough with them. You know, he sniffs. You sniff. And you're trying to, like, I don't know. He's not talking to me, because they're the quiet people, is what he said. They wouldn't talk. So, he took his head. He said, grab my head. Took me. And he's like, blah, blah. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he gave him his name. And the way he says it, he says it like, blah, blah. Or something like that. And it was like, holy fuck, dude. Like, the whole room was just, like, heavy. But, like, in a good way. And he was like, that was the most powerful moment. His grandpa made him stay with this man. And then from this man, he became a medicine man. So, from the age of five, he was taught on the reservation in the forest on how to use everything. All the plants. He had a whole table of all these plants, man. And he was, like, talking about, like, women who have menstrual cycles. He's like, you think you can get this at a pharmacy? This will actually help you. And he was talking about how we all drink out of plastic. And that's what's caused cancer in our country. And all these things. But what was interesting is, he started talking about COVID. And you would think he's just against all these vaccines. And he wasn't. And he talked about how, like, the vaccine, like, saved a lot of their nation. But it was late because of capitalism. And it got to the reservations last. And so, he was like, we could have saved a lot more. This is the country we live in. They don't care for our people. And it's very true. But it was just, it was a spiritual experience. And so, when questions came around, of course, I'm like, no one's asking questions. It's a very quiet class. Only a few of us like to talk. And I'm like, I got to ask him about plant medicine. I have to ask him about plant medicine. Yeah, you're like, my brother's going to go. Dude, you're going to find his answer so funny. So, I raised my hand. And I'm trying to, I was trying to word it so that he would know. Because I was starting to notice the way he talked that some of the words aren't really used. Like, I don't think certain ways we identify psychedelics are used. They're used in their culture at all. So, I asked him and I was like, so where, is there any, like, place for plant medicine in your culture? And he kind of just gave me this look. And again, he's a very, like, you could just feel his power in the room and his wisdom. And so, I already felt like I failed. You asked him if there was any space for plant medicine. Is there any in your medicine? Yeah, like peyote. Yeah, but is there any place for plant medicine or psychedelics? That's what I said. Is there any place for psychedelics? And he kind of gave me a look like psychedelics. And I was like, so, like, ayahuasca. I was like, psilocybin. And then he's like, oh. So he didn't even acknowledge the ayahuasca. He acknowledged the psilocybin. And then so he just, instead of, he didn't talk about it much. And he was like, there actually isn't a place in our culture. And, no, interesting. And he started talking about some of his mushroom strips and how it helped him. And that all the research that we're doing now in our society is bringing that to light. But that they weren't, at least his tribe didn't use them. And I found that really interesting because I was expecting him to go on the medicine journey. Yeah, I think that, like, especially with, like, Native American, there's so many tribes. There's so many different, like, history, thousands of years of, like, thousands of different tribes of different histories and connections to plants and connections to, like, planet and stuff like that. I know that, like, in Northern California here, right, like, Oakland was where they legalized, you know, like, the non -discrimination of plants, basically, or something like that. And peyote was taken out of that law specific so that, like, peyote is only being used by the Native American people because that is the Native American, like, cultural, like, historical plant that's been used for those, like, you know, sacred times and rituals. And so, doing peyote, if you're not a Native American, is not an okay thing. Yeah. That is not respecting the history because there's so much of that culture that's been ripped apart. Right? Because of colonialism. So, that is really interesting that he would respond that way. But, I mean... I almost wonder if he just didn't want to talk about it. I mean, yeah. I mean, whatever. It's... But still, it sounds like an amazing... Oh, it's so amazing. That sounds like a great class. Like, let's go back to school. To close it off to, he had... Because everything he has is handmade. He makes all his own bows. He does all his own hunting. He eats off the land, drinks off the land. Love it. He, yeah, very inspirational. Makes you want to live off the land so badly. Oh, dude. Yeah, let's get out of here. Let's get the fuck out of here. Let's get the fuck out of here. He closed it by... He said he wanted to pray for all of us and send a prayer our way. And then he's like, I'm going to do it through music with a flute that I made. And so he pulls out this huge, huge flute, dude. All beautifully carved from... I think it was like chestnut or something. Something amazing. And he played us this song. And then he would like turn through the class. He has his eyes closed. And he's pushing the energy out to you. And it was really, really powerful, dude. Yeah. In a really beautiful way. Like, almost emotionally powerful. If it was just me and him, I probably would have cried for sure. Oh, that's so beautiful. Yeah. Oh, that's wonderful. And what good timing. Yeah. Synchronicity, right? Yeah. I know that like in all of the planet, like the native culture and history that goes back thousands of years, plants, song, dance. Yeah. Like these are all very powerful medicinal qualities. Like before there was any Western medicine, it was only that forever. And so when it came to being bit by a snake, right, there are plants that you can like, that would be taken and like, you know, like a person would be bit by a snake or whatever. And they'd like immediately go to a, you know, what's called like a Vaginista or a Konduro or something. I can't remember the name of it. I can't pronounce it. And they would, you know, immediately go get a plant and they would grind it up and they would put it around the, you know, snake bite or whatever and, and then start singing, right? Because there's like, every plant has a song, right? A little pause... and we are back. If you talk to anybody in these cultures, they would tell you that when you only have plants, when you only have the forest, when you only have these things, that's what you use to survive. How do you learn it? You just do it. You learn over thousands of years. Yeah, it's passed down. Yeah. And, you know, I really, really, really believe in the spirit of plants and the spirit of animals and, like, how these things are, like, within all of us, if we so choose to become aware of them and practice with them, you can rid yourself of horrific, you know, torturous demons, which no religion here, but there is a religiosity that comes from these cultures around these plants. Yeah. All of us suffer from such atrocities. And issues from our childhood and, like, the experiences that we have. And so, there's never anybody, I believe, on this planet that could, you know, not benefit from some sort of plant healing. That even goes with the way we eat plants, the way we eat our diets, you know, like, what we put into our body becomes us. Even becoming, like, more aware and thankful as you eat the food you eat has a powerful effect on your digestion. You know, like, just becoming aware of how lucky we are to have the food that we eat. We do have. Yeah. So, it's really weird that you had this, Matt. Were you going to say something? I was going to say, let's get into the meat of what we're actually talking about, Nathan. Yeah, we're not... I mean, that's all we're going to say is, you know, like, if you want, you can pause this right now and go back a year. You can go back to April 2023. And I am going on a, you know, another retreat. It's like a meditation retreat. It's group therapy. It's people like you and me. That gather to be vulnerable, just like what we do on this cast. To share our stories, to share our inflictions, our pains, our issues, our angers. And by using specifically plant medicine to connect more with our internal authentic selves. And with the spirits of animals and plants and all of that. And last year was, that's where the term violent healing was learned. Yeah. You know, and it was a very violent. Healing process last year. And it was super scary. Fear became such a prominent part of the experience. And ever since I went on that retreat, my entire life has changed. And how I wake up in the morning and how I live my life. My awareness of self. That self-love, right? Like last year, I really became my own mother. And dealt with so much of my abandonment issues with mom and dad. Like we talked, we've talked so much about our family on this podcast. Our upbringing and how we've connected to it. But I mean, God, this is what our whole podcast is about. Our parents are the pastors of this Christian evangelical radical church. And there's been a lot of inflicted trauma that came from our childhood and how that has displayed in my life for me and for you. And so that's why I'm going again is, um, and I'll probably continue to do this because there is no lack of trauma or things that happen every year that I can just never, not a moment in time where I could be learning more and more. And the moment I feel like I get somewhere where like, finally, I've gotten rid of this or I've discovered, I've learned this. It's like, that's when I can start anew and do it again. Like always keep rehealing and healing and healing and learning more of how to be a positive and like, you know, I don't know, loving and caring individual human on this planet that ultimately animals, plants, the trees, soil has been here way before humanity ever was. Like way humans are so brand. And if we wipe ourselves out, they're going to be here forever more, right? And yeah, just becoming more aware of that. And it's so easy to think that like humans are separate from the planet, like we're like this, this wound or this inflicted thing. And I think like when you meet someone like the medicine person that you met in your class, you can feel what a human, like what humanity is like when there's so much connection to the planet, right? Like so much connection. It's powerful. You can feel it, it reverberates like into the room. And so we're, if we're lucky enough to come in contact with these people or whatever, like you will sense it and we should take from that and like that's energy given to us and we should like take that energy, especially from medicine individuals that like carry this medicine from lineages that go back a thousand years, you know, it's like, yes, give me the energy, let me learn some of this. And so, yeah. So, yeah, I guess like when we, given all that we talked about, we were really trying to figure out what we wanted to talk about. And this is coming up in two days. It's taken over. It takes over your life. How you feel about it? How about we do that? How about we start talking about how you're doing? Yeah. So like part of the buildup to this retreat requires a pretty intense diet and ridding your body of dependency. Yeah. And so, yeah, no sex for a long time. Hasn't been any sex for a while. Okay. We know we've talked about sex. We've talked about sexual trauma in this cast. We talked about porn. We've talked about these things like no porn, no any of that for weeks and weeks. No masturbation for a long time. No salt. No. Salt has been taken out of my diet now. I think I actually took salt out. And when I say no salt, I mean like literally not adding any salt to anything besides like there's a little salt in my bread. Yeah. And there was like, I do use salted butter and like very minimally, but like there's still that. I've taken that completely out over the last year. It's like a week and a half. And salt's a really important electrolyte, especially for someone like me who works out all the time. Yeah. And so, I got my final workout in yesterday. Because you're trying to go soft, right? Yeah. Well, it's just more of like anything that's like stimulating. You're supposed to like lessen so that you can just really become like be in the environment more, go on more hikes. I'm in my garden a lot more. But like one of the other things I took out is one of my most loved and... the most dependent plant I'm always on is just cannabis. Took that out. It's been three weeks now. Yeah. So, like last year, I tried to take it out a month before and I couldn't do it. And I only got two weeks before the retreat. Yeah. So, this year I'm three weeks. Good for you, man. Yeah. One more week. But cannabis is amazing. It is such a powerful medicine. I know that you've become a lot more in tune with it and a lot more connected to it, which has been awesome together for us. Because I think like you've been able to learn and see a lot of why that plant has helped me so much with my trauma. Yeah. But goddamn, Mother Ganja is sticky. Oh, yeah. Sticky, sticky, sticky. And that was really, really hard for me to come off of again. Like, frustratingly hard. And I know that you were a part of that. It was like, how long ago was it? It was the beginning of March when me, you, and someone else that I'm like, we'll have to put their name on this. But we all decided to quit cannabis together. And Zach comes over and quits it right away. And day one, I'm like, call him. I'm like, I just want to let you know that I'm smoking tonight. And he was like, what? I was like, yeah, I'm going to be using cannabis. And you were like, I thought we just quit. And I was like, I'm not ready. No, you were like, I'm not ready and I'm trying to be softer on myself. Yeah. Exactly right. Last year was very harsh. Yeah. Love. And you did. You went a whole month. I did. I just went. I just did it. You know, it's interesting. The three-week mark, I started to feel really good. And I started to realize that I want to get to a point in my life where I'm just actually not using cannabis anymore. Or at least I am very rarely. Or like using it for like you and I are hanging out having dinner or something. And we decided to use cannabis or use it to meditate or something else. Can you imagine? It's like so hard for me to imagine that. You know, it's like for my relationship with cannabis, it's like, you know, that shit touches my lips. And it's like we're doing this daily. It's tough. I love it. So, the thing with cannabis is it feels like a really healthy way to detach. Yeah. And what used to be used, at least by me and I know by you, to detach was alcohol. And alcohol is just a fucking poison. It's just terrible for you. And it's so harsh. I'm not judging anyone that uses alcohol. That's not what we do here. I mean, it's fine. For our lives. I still have... I still drink. I don't really get drunk anymore, but I still drink here and there. You know, I like went to a friend's birthday thing yesterday and had a couple of drinks at the bar there. But still, I woke up feeling chill. I feel shitty today. You know? Like, just from a couple of drinks. I'm like, ugh. You can feel it tear apart your body. Especially if you're not drinking that much, man. Your liver is just like... Yeah. Overdrive. Yeah. Everyone, where? What'd you put in my bottle? Here comes the whiskey. Totally. And when you smoke weed, it's like... or cannabis, however you want to say it. Alcohol is like, yeah, this is great. And the next morning, you're like, ugh. And we smoke cannabis. You're like, ugh. No, dude. You wake up the next day and you can be a little air heady. But that's about it. And cannabis opens up my mind in a way that alcohol shuts down. And so it's just different. Yeah. And being able to use cannabis instead of alcohol, that's where I was going, is healthier for my body right now. Powerful. It's powerful. Yeah. But I would love to get to a point where I'm not even really using cannabis that much. Yeah. I remember you, last time you came off last year, that's what you were saying too, is I want to get to a place where I'm not using it as much. But it's really hard. It's really hard. It works, man. It's great medicine. Yeah. It's... There's something about when you're... You're rigorously trying to live in this capitalistic society to be able to hop out at nighttime. Yeah. When you're like jumping into the machine every day. Every day. And then you get home and you're like, I got to get off this machine. Ugh. Yeah. And then you like... You know, like there's so many things that we could do. Yeah. But like, you can meditate, you can get your workouts in, right? These are all like whatever. But if you smoke a joint right away, like if you get home from work and you smoke a joint, it's instant like, ugh. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to go work out. Yeah. Yeah. What am I going to do tonight? Right? It's a lot more less, I have to do this. I have to get this done. Well, you start being right instantly in the present. Yeah. Which is so important. Yeah. Instantly in the present. That's something that the medicine man said many times. Your present is very important. It is. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of our lives day to day, my life day to day is like taking myself out of the present because I get this anxiety. Anxiety of like the monotonous tasks we have to do every day just in our lives, right? And so, if I can listen to something, you know, that's really distracting, it's a lot easier for me to get through that time. And so, this buildup to the retreat is taking those things out. So, here we are doing a podcast. But I haven't been listening to any of the podcasts that I listen to that I like follow that helped me like the 20-minute cast or the things that I like to watch on, you know, I'm like, I love YouTube. I'm a huge fan of the YouTube platform. And so, if I'm cooking or if I'm working out or if I'm in the garden or if I'm pulling weeds or picking up my son, there's like a 40-minute drive there and back. I'll be listening to like two people talking to each other just like this. Yeah. It's so nice, right? Yeah. It feels so good to hear people talking to each other. Oh, totally. And it is wild when you take that shit out. Oh, yeah. Like when you get off work and you hop in your car and you drive your 15 minutes home from work with not the podcast playing, you know, like the first week of that is like every day is like, what am I going to do? Yeah. What am I going to do? And then you get home and you're like, I'm not even smoking. I can't even listen to my podcast, right? So, it can feel really like not fun. But if you stick with it and there's like, so I have this thing that I'm going to that motivates me that where the lineage of the people that do this retreat go back hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. And it's all around the power and spirit of plants and animals and the earth, planet earth, stars, and everything that has to do with just life and life itself. That's not technology. That's not all of the things we have now that we've started to have in the last hundred years, really like 50 years. What if you do it and you really, you know, like some of the people in this practice say that it's so important to take these things out to benefit from this style of healing. And so, when you really do it, so much of the healing starts before you even get to a retreat. Totally. So, when you ask me how am I feeling, I like, I love how you started this podcast. You're like, best day of my life. Never felt better. I literally am waking up feeling a combination of like antsiness and also very happy to be alive. Hmm. What I mean by happy, it's like I'm excited to be alive because I've been off coffee for two months, mind you. No caffeine for two months. You're welcome. That means every podcast we're doing, every single interview, like every morning at 4am in the hospital as a cardiac surgical nurse, I'm drinking peppermint tea, baby. And I have the type of brain and mind where I'm like, I'm up, I'm ready. Like, let's go. Let's get it. And so, I'm connecting with my truth, which is like, dude, I don't really need anything to get going. I don't need anything to be here now, to be present, to be with my patients, to get that heart IV, to do 20 IVs a day, to work nine hour shifts five days in a row. It's tiring. Don't, you know, but like then I can come home and work out and get into my garden after that, then cook a big dinner and clean up the kitchen and fix up the house and then like chill with my wife, go to bed by like 10. Yeah. And this is where I'm at now. Yeah. And this is where I've been at. And it's been really amazing. Um, but I didn't sleep for almost a week trying to get off cannabis again. Yeah. Like really bad sleep waking, like being up in my bed. I remember the first week I tried to quit cannabis. I was up till I was up all night and had to work at like 5am the next day. And I had so much anxiety. I was like 3am. I was doing like meditations, deep breathing in the living room. And it was just like, fuck this shit. And finally at like five or like 3.30 in the morning. Right. I woke up at 4.30. I like take a quick hit of weed because I'm having such bad anxiety that what if I don't sleep? What if I don't sleep before I go to the hospital? And like, I had to go through that whole experience again. That was like, I had to relearn that it's okay if I don't sleep. Like coming off cannabis. One of the major effects is insomnia. That's like coming off that drug, like coming off that plane. You're going to have insomnia like a lot of people do, but I already have insomnia. Sleep has already been a huge thing that came up in my life when I was a kid. I wonder why. Yeah. The religious trauma. Right. Like I don't... I'm not a victim to it, but I've learned a lot of where that started. And so, I've been happy to say that my dreams are back in full force. Really intense, violent nightmares at times. Also, some amazing lucid dreams with close friends and family. And a part of this lineage also, you know, speaks on really listening to your dreams. The power of dreams. And one of the things about cannabis is you... You pass right out and it's just like black static. Yeah. Dreams instantly stop. You wake up, you know, like I think you have them, but you have no memory of them. Yeah. That short-term memory. Right. Right when you wake up, you're like, it's gone. Yeah. Where like now it's like I wake up in the middle of the night to go like pee at like three in the morning and I'm like, oh my God, I gotta get back to that dream. So, I go pee and I go right back to sleep and I'm back in that dream. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. Um, but I am scared. And somebody told me in our group, they said, you know... Fear is the same wave or the same vibration as excitement. Yeah. You just gotta change your... Change your perspective. Yeah. But I am scared because, um, why do we do this podcast, man? There are, there are traumas in my life that have been there. Deep, deep things that I repress or I suppress or whatever. And, um, this is why I'm going to do this again because I really, really believe in healing these traumas. Mm. And which means I'm going for these reasons. Yeah. And whatever happens, happens. Yeah. And I really look forward to it. I'm excited. I'm nervous. Um, but, um, yeah, I'm a big believer in healing and however that looks for people. This just goes back to a part of humanity that is so old and so real. Um, and it's helping me really learn what my beliefs are now in life. Mm. Like when I had started, we started this podcast and I said, you are God. I am God. We are God. Everything and everyone is God. Like, that is what I believe, people. Yeah. That is my belief. People are like, are you a believer? I'd be like, hell yeah. Not in Jesus. I am Jesus. Right? Like, I am God. Well, Jesus is also God. Right? Like, it's like, there, it's, God is in everything, man. Like, that's why I love gardening. It's just, you can take like a seed that holds the potential for life that lasts six years and you can put it in the ground with some water and all of a sudden there's a cucumber four months later. Yeah. Or three months later. Yeah. Like, what the fuck? And then you chop that cucumber over, like open and it looks like organs in our body. Yeah. You cut open a tomato and it looks like lungs. Yeah. Right? Like, there's so much God in everything if you choose to see that. Yeah. And I think that we were raised to be like, thank you. Like, it was, there was so much gratitude and thankfulness. Like, we used to pray before all of our meals. Yeah. And so, now I'm like praying again. So, like doing this retreat forces me to pray again, but it's like, I'm relearning how to pray and be thankful for everything in my life in such a different perspective that's not tunnel visioned. That's not like making you... it doesn't take me out of it, it puts me in all of it. There's so much self in everything. And so, it's been really healing for my religious trauma. So healing. And so, here we go again. Yeah. And I'm thrilled. But one of the things I was going to bring up is I had a dream. Hmm. And I could keep talking more if you have more, if you have like any questions. But I think this might be a good segue into what you wanted to talk about. I had a dream about dad. Hmm. Two dreams about dad. The reason I had a dream about dad was violent. It was last night. And he was very upset with me. And I... it was so hard for me to take in when I woke up. It's not even hard for me to remember. Hmm. But those are the type of dreams. I'm going to some traumas, right? We're going to like the parental shit. We're talking about the people that I ultimately... God, I love our parents so much. Yeah. And I still just desire and wish they loved me a certain... you know, at times I still... I've healed so much from it. But I just wish... How do I say this? I'm learning in my journey this time and this time in my life, I'm learning that so much of the way I've perceived love back at me has come from a place of the lack of love the way I've wanted it. So because I didn't get loved the way I wanted to as a kid and as a teenager, and because it was quite the opposite, it was like, get out of our lives, get away from us. A lot of the things that I've searched for in love have been like a reflection of that, like with past partners or friendships, like people that hold me at a distance and take a lot from me. And that's been like, that's how I've received love or that's what I've perceived love to be. And that can come in superficial ways, like looks or beauty, right? Finding that like, you know, there's love in beautiful people. Beautiful people have like so much love to give. I've never even thought about it, but that's like a new lesson that I've started to learn, is that I feel really safe when there's like this strict guideline to like being an attractive, beautiful person in our society. I think I've been told that in my life, that I'm one of those people. So I've been like always trying to understand what that means for me when people have told me that. And then like finding that that's like, like that's a really intense, like, I don't know, lifestyle that I've lived to try to maintain that. And so I don't always see myself as a beautiful person in the mirror. In fact, rarely do. I've dealt with body dysmorphia for so long. And so when like somebody tells me I'm beautiful or attractive, I know how to play that game with people. But then when I'm alone, I don't get to like see the same thing in the mirror. And that's caused me some serious issues in my relationships. Even in my marriage. Like there have been things that have come up recently that have been... fucking heavy that I've had to face. That have been like surprising to me that I can be somebody that has this podcast on religious trauma and do these retreats for healing. And there's such a superficial part within me that is like... that I am learning to see more clearly now. And it's hard. And it sucks to admit it. And it's also like... but like here we go with healing. That was a total sidetrack. But what I was gonna say was I had this dream about dad where I was at this retreat. We were in a meditation circle. And I'm sitting there meditating and I like opened my eyes and I looked to my right. And there's dad. And I'm like, oh shit. Oh my God, it's dad. And it was full on dad. Very lucid. And I'm there like... Dad! And he looks at me and he's like, Nathan. And I'm like, what are you doing here? And he was like... And he just had this look on his face where he was like... I don't know. Why am I here, Nathan? And it was almost like he'd got into my dream or something. And I was like, dude, you're not, you are not supposed to be here in this place right now. Like, you're not, I would never expect you to, you should not be here. And he was like, dude, I don't know why I'm here. And he was like, scared. He's like, I don't know why I'm here. And I was like, yeah, why are you here? And he kept saying that. And he looked at me and he went, Nathan, I don't know why I'm here, but I'm here. Okay. And I was like, okay. And I thought, and in my head, I went, oh my God, this is like a dream of mine to go on like a, such a no religion, take all the religion out of it. Let's go on a plant meditation retreat together. You and me. What a fucking dream. Never would happen. I don't believe that would ever happen. But there I was in that dream and I went, oh my god, it's happening. This is a dream. This has got to be a dream. And to my left, there was a group of people that were doing this weird Christian prayer over somebody. Of course. Speaking in tongues, right to the left of me. And it was kind of like that, remember that Arizona thing that happened in Arizona where all those people were in the Senate and they were like... And they were like doing the Christian thing. It was like so weird if we know what we're talking about. That's what it looked like. So, I'm sure that kind of creeped in from that. And the person that was kind of leading the meditation circle came right up to us and went right to dad and went, hey, you need to go pray for that person right now. And dad was like, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that. That's not why I'm here. And they were like, you have to go pray for them. And he went, absolutely, stood up and the circle was like doing this weird Christian shit. And dad just sat in the back and he just closed his eyes. And you know what I'm saying, how he does it. He put his hand up like how he always does and starts praying for this person. And I was so confused because I was so happy he was there. I was like, he's not supposed to be here, but he is here. And he's also using his... his religion's being used in this place when there's no religion here normally. And one thought came to me right in that moment as I looked around the room and saw them and saw dad. And his dad was like closing his eyes as I went, everyone and everything is welcome. And that was just like, those words hit me. I was like sitting in my like meditation place and I was just like everything and everyone is welcome. And it just made me feel so much more at peace with like mom or dad and mom and like the fact that they are these radical Christians that end up boating in such different ways than we do. And in many ways to me have such a... I don't even want to speak ill or anything, but just a disregard. I don't want to speak ill or anything, but just a disregard to freedom of like gender and freedom of life and freedom of choice and freedom of religion and like to like, because for them it's black and white. It's one way or the highway. And that's what I was seeing in that moment. But for me, it was like this picture of like, regardless, they're here, he's here and he's allowed to be here and he's allowed to pray for that person. Like, I'm not here to stop him from praying for people. Like, I should not like none of this podcast, nothing that we're doing here. Should be about stopping people from being people. Yeah. Because this life is really hard and there's a lot of suffering and there's a lot of suffering people go through and whatever. However, people find their God, whatever that is, like is on them and they're welcome here on this planet to be them. Right. And I think that on our podcast and with our trauma, there's a lot that can feel like we got to fucking stop this shit. We got to stop all this. And there's a lot that we do wish would stop. There's a whole bunch of shit that happens with religion all over our planet that is just horrible. And that's why we have a podcast. And so, but yeah, that was like a powerful dream just to feel that like I can let go more now. I can continue like part of my healing is like I'm letting go more and more of just people and their impact on my life. They don't affect me. They don't have to affect me. They can be whatever they want. I would really hope they don't limit people from learning who they truly are. And you should definitely not deny yourself. You should not put all of your trust into one man. Right. You are all that you need to be. Like I've said it before, the cosmos illuminates from within us. We are the light. We are life in its fullest. Like we are that beautiful, constant flow of energy that we can give and take back in everything that we do. Um. That's where I'm at. Hmm. Sounds like a really strong place to be. I feel... Real powerful. Extremely clear headed. Um. And nervous. Yeah. I'd be nervous too. Yeah. But I know that you wanted to talk about how this podcast has affected your relationship with mom and dad. Hmm. Our parents who are, you know, pastors. They're the church. Yeah. They're just the version of the church, right? Like they are the church to us. And, um. Um. They live and breathe that. Hmm. Go for it. Oh, I don't remember what I wanted to say if I had to be honest. I mean, I mean about that specifically. Um. You got to say something, man. This is the rules, bro. It's a solo podcast. No, no, totally. I can totally, totally talk about that. Um. That's what you were telling me that you wanted to talk about? Well, I really wanted to talk about your experience and everything you've been doing. Now I'm putting it in. Now I'm putting the camera on you. Good. Put the camera. I can take the camera. How has... I can take the camera, Nate. I can take it. Like, think about it. Handle it. Like, there's so much in my, with my therapist that I've talked to about, and I've shared this with you, about how, like, I've started to see so much of how mine and your relationship with mom and dad, even with this podcast, is so much different. Just the way they treat you. And at first, it's been so painful at times. Like, so hard for me to accept just how much different of a life you've had, you know? And it's been like, yeah, you'll just never understand. But, like, our podcast is really... It really helped you understand these differences, right? Yeah. In our family. Yeah. But then you were telling me that you've had a very change, a change in your relationship with mom and dad since this podcast. Yeah. And since, like, the Palestine stuff. Yeah. And how much of an impact that just created in your life by setting boundaries. Yeah. Well, from the religion we come from and from the fundamentalist evangelical Calvary Chapel Christianity that we were raised under, they like to make it super welcoming until it's not. Until it's not welcoming. And who's it not welcoming to? Anyone that doesn't believe what they believe or preaches anything in the opposite. And ever since we started to just, man, be honest with our upbringing, something that we've hidden from people, how, just, like, I would say crazy and how wild and how separated we were from society as children. I just, I never, we never talked about it with anybody. Oh, a group religious. Yeah, a group religious. That's it. A group religious. I'm not Christian anymore. Cool. That's it. It's all anyone's ever known until now, until this podcast. And since we've done this, it has, it has greatly changed at least my relationship with our parents. Your relationship's different because, again, like you said, you have a different relationship with them. You got booted at a young age from the house that you were living in. It took your livelihood away, you know? But they didn't do that with me. So it was, it was a lot different. But I got to experience a little bit of that abandonment when I started being honest about my religious trauma and being on this podcast and started to feel like, oh, actually, I don't. Yeah, it's conditional. And I guess that's more of what I wanted to talk about in terms of that is that we were just raised, man, to believe that that religion, Christianity, is just based off of love. And it's just, we just, we're, we're... We're preaching love, not, it's just like, so not that. And if you look out through history, Christianity is the, is the culprit to oppression. Like, it is the oppressor. And we know it in terms of the religious trauma, but even just in terms of, like, capitalism, even in terms of colonialism, Christianity was used as the gun to initiate slavery, to initiate rapes, to initiate taking over people, whole people's cultures in the name of Christianity. The missions just here in California were at a direct, a direct, what's the word I'm looking for? We, we called them missions as like, we were trying to convert the indigenous population to Christianity. But in reality, we were trying to just rid their culture. But it was Christianity that was used to do it. And Christians, they don't teach that in their Christian schools. They didn't teach us that. When we were raised, they didn't teach us anything negative about Christianity because it's the truth and they avoided it a hundred percent. And so we talk about it honestly here and we get a little abandoned. And that's something that you dealt with on your last retreat that you went to, was abandonment. And it's so true in our family, dude, that abandonment is, is true and causes, if anything causes the trauma. The religion, fuck the religion, dude. Like who cares? It's just, it's their, it's their belief. These are our beliefs. But in reality, it's the, I only love you if, I only love you to my fullest potential if because I don't want you to pull me away from my God. That's the trauma. That's the real trauma. And that's what I've been seeing is, is what's my relationship even more. If that's the truth behind our relationship is that if I'm going to be honest with the world about our upbringing. The uncomfortability and the trauma that I endured, and then I lose my actual connection with my parents. Like then what did we actually have? Yeah. I feel like I'm getting a little sidetracked now, but, um, You're getting sidetracked? I think you're just talking. Yeah. No, this podcast has been wild, man. Um, our whole, at least for me, man, my whole life's changed, but my whole life has changed in many other ways. Hurting my back has absolutely changed my life. Um, in some serious ways. I guess like what I was thinking like about is like something recently was right. When the whole Israel Palestine conflict started, we saw Christians and you know, it's not that hard to see what's going on, but like this Christian nation supports the Jewish nation of Israel. Right. But not the Muslim nation of Palestine. And when you became more aware of that, you know, you were calling me and texting me like, yo, I'm, you know, our parents are sending me like crazy stuff on this. And it was like propaganda, propaganda, and you said, like, it got so bad. Like they weren't sending me anything like that. Of course not. But you've always had a relationship with them where you would talk to them about everything, you know, like you guys could argue in a, in a healthy way, if you will. And, but then you, you know, if, you know, if like, if you're okay with me, like sharing it, like you set boundaries with them for like, like the first time ever in your life, you set boundaries. You can no longer set boundaries with them in a way that you never had before, where you were like, you have to stop doing this. You can no longer send me information on this. I do not believe what you believe. I think you're wrong. And around that time, all of a sudden, like mom and dad started to treat me a little bit differently, received me a little bit more. And I could feel it. It was like really painful for them just to have you set those boundaries because of the relationship you've had as the youngest. And, you know, like we've talked so much on this cast about it and how like I was pushed out and they coddled you beyond belief. And so like one of the things I've talked to my therapist about was... I was like, I've talked to him about this, all this stuff. It's like seeing how this looks and how this makes me feel as an older brother, like the person in your life that like it breaks my heart to see like when you go through this because I just know how it feels. Yeah. And they did. You guys like really didn't talk to each other for a long time after like those boundaries were set, like a lot changed. Which is incredibly unnecessary. And that's kind of like part of the trauma as well is I'm a grown 31 year old adult. Yeah. And I can say, hey, what you're sending me is... It's offending me. Stop. Yeah. And if that ruins the relationship, then that relationship is a really shaky relationship. Yeah. But like one of the things that recently that's come up, I think, and we've talked about this off camera a lot has been like, and I've talked about it with my therapist, is that you've even said to me like, hey, like, you know, I think something's, you know, going on with our parents. Like, you know, mom's been hitting me up more. She's been checking on me. She called me. She asked how I was doing, you know, whatever. And like you're more involved in their lives a little bit more again. And... Mm-hmm. And I was sitting over here like, really? You know, they just don't do that with me. And I'm not ever wanting to speak ill of them. It's more of just talking with you live on this cast about their relationship to the church and how that looks differently for us. And like, because the church is our parents and like... and so when you have brought those things up to me and you've been like, you know, like I think something for me, it's like the same. It's like, I wouldn't know because there's not like the same... they don't have the same desire or the same like... there's not that same connection, if you will. And in the past, that'd be like it was always so angering and painful. Like he just doesn't... he'll never get it. And I think that like, talking with my therapist about this, one of the things that he said to me that was also like taking the personality, like take the emotions out of this. Like just let it go, right? Like who fucking... it's all good. Like how do you rise above this, right? Yeah. And that's like the mission I'm on is to like, just let go and let people be people. Even my parents, just let them be. I really don't need them. I don't. I don't really need them at all. It's that deep, deep-seated childhood drama, you know, that teenager in me, that 17-year-old self that's just like, what about me? You know, that feeling like, come on. And I don't even really want it. And the more I've healed, the more I've been able to be like, I don't even need a relationship fully with them anymore. Like I don't, that's not even what I need. It's my son. My son needs a relationship with his grandparents. Even though I completely disagree with what they believe in and like, you know, the way that they do it, it's like, I don't have any control over him. He's going to have to figure things out on his own. I can just be a voice and like... But one of the things my therapist said, it sounds like, I explained this all to him and I was just like, you know, I'm just so, I said, what used to make me so angry now makes me so happy for Zach. Like when he brings up how mom is checking in on him. That hurts, but it makes me so happy that one of us has that in our family. And I get to like experience a little bit of that in our family because of your relationship with them. Like you, like, that's a beautiful thing that you have a parent that's like has the ability and strength to like call you to be vulnerable. Like, hey, just let you know I love you and I'm sorry if I like offended you. Right? Like, I don't think they've ever apologized to me once in my life....of ever. And I said all these things to my therapist, and he was like, you know, Nathan, how he talks, he's like, you know, Nathan, it sounds like the fault line in your relationship with them is becoming more clear. That's all he said. And I was like, yeah, like, it doesn't need to be personal. It doesn't feel, it feels like I'm finally happier just about when you bring up things that are like good, about the, like a good thing about the relationship with our parents. I'm like, that's a good thing. I can feel that. And it's like, but what that also does is it reminds me, or it helps, it's helped clarify, like, having more softness and more love about it has been more of like, where am I at? Like, where is my real relationship at with my folks? And the way me and my therapist conceptualize it would be like, if you went to the Grand Canyon, and you're on like one side, and you're like looking at the Grand Canyon, it's just like crazy, right? And there's all these like ridges way out there. And you could never, you just see like in the distance, all these crazy endless ridges. And he's like, you know, imagine like, maybe they're all the way on the other side, like one of those ridges. They're there. There they are. Like, look how much, look how beautiful it is. Look how beautiful this fault line really is. He's like, and they're all the way over there. Really hard to hear them. Really hard to communicate. Really hard to feel them. But they're there. And there's so much beauty in between. And that's okay. Yeah. Like, look at the beauty. And I was like, ah, that is what it is. Like, that's how it... Instead of it being this, like, angering thing. That's kind of what I was getting at. It was just like... There's... Like, we have it... Being on this podcast together, talking about this, and you have maintained, for some reason, they've maintained a relationship with you that's just different than mine. Well, like you said, it's gone through waves. A lot has changed in our relationship since this podcast has started. More than anything else. At least with my relationship with them. Your relationship's always kind of been on the rocks. Forever, you know? Whereas mine wasn't. And so this relationship put it on the rocks. And then now, it's interesting to just analyze it. Analyze the relationship as an adult and what it is. And it's interesting to see... And it's not just our parents, but a lot of parents of this generation, their generation, they want their kids to just continue to educate. To adhere to what they want. And they kind of become the children in the relationship. As harsh as that sounds, but it's true. Your parents, especially once you get into your 30s, start to either grow with you and adapt to the relationships the relationship lasts, or you need to baby them the rest of their life and not offend them. And I'm just not about that life. I'm like... The younger generation always knows better. They knew better than their parents. Their parents felt kind of crazy to them too. Yeah, I know. But they unfortunately stumbled into a Calvary Chapel Christian church that fucked a lot of shit up. Our grandparents were like artists, theater people, they were painters. With different traumas, for sure. 100%. The church makes it really fucking weird. Makes it weird. But even take that out of it, there's families that put a lot of stress and emphasis on it. They put a lot of emphasis on education. And if you don't become a doctor, you're not part of this family. Whole different trauma, same thing. Same idea, just whole different trauma. And they can't grow out of that idea of people are their own people, fucking grow up. This is your child. Love them. It's your only job. It's to love your child. And if there's anything that can make you second guess that, then damn you need to learn some lessons on love. That's just not love. You're supposed to love your children. And if you're not, you're being a bad parent. Yeah. 100%. Your kid is doing all these crazy things and abusing other people and stuff. It's like, yeah, that's a tough love. It's a tough love, but you are supposed to love them. That is your one job. Yeah. When you just see parents that can't do that, that can't put like, and I'm not even calling our parents out, I'm actually just speaking really broadly here, but can't put beliefs aside, can't put ideas aside, can't even for a second challenge their own beliefs in any way or own ideas just about how they thought the world ran in the 70's doesn't fucking run the same now. You know, like, we have more information, they can't even change their ideas. It just shows a lot about how tough that relationship is going to be. And that's where the distance comes, and that's where the boundaries come, is because it's like there's certain things happening in our world, especially now, especially since we've had more communication with other people around the world through social media, that we see a lot more, and us as the younger generation being like, hey, I don't think we should be sending money to Israel anymore, with our tax dollars. I know we were raised to believe differently, but just that thought causes such chaos in their mind that you're supporting terrorism? Is like, okay, so it doesn't isn't that a red flag? That just to have the opposite idea would cause that much of chaos in your brain. And the fact that what you brought up earlier about how these missions where Christianity was used as the scapegoat was used as like, we're saving people to find the true God, when in reality it was like, no, we're just decimating them and colonizing them. And so that's why this is a Christian nation. And a lot of Christians not all, definitely not all, but a lot of Christians in this country support the war machine. Because it's about these things to them. It's about the end times. And that's why you see this all over the internet right now. It's like, Jesus is coming. Repentance now. Hurry, sinner. Hurry before it's too late. And it's like, no, actually I guess your prophecy is going to be fulfilled, so lucky you. I'm good. This is a good thing for you, right? Don't worry about me. There's always this I think that the fear from these radical Christians display in such bizarre ways where they place the fear on non-believers by being like, you're going to be left behind. Not me, you. And it's like, it sounds like it seems like you're just displaying your fear of death in a very bizarre way. Yeah. You know? Because we all fear death. It's terror management theory, dude. You know, it's like, yeah. It's just and so to fear death less is like why I'm going on my retreat. Yeah. Right? But yeah. It's interesting. That's originally what I was going to bring to the podcast today before we were going to talk about everything we talked about. I was going to talk about terror management theory. Terror management theory. TMT. TMT. It's dynamite. It really is dynamite. Holy shit. Yeah. Terror management theory is how you get the war machine to keep going with people not creating a fuss or protesting in the streets about it. Because they know what happened with Vietnam. They know what happened with all these other people who were in the streets. How do you keep people from going to the streets about Iraq? Well, you keep them from talking to each other. Keep them from talking to each other. You keep the information down. You make sure that they don't know that a million people were killed with drone strikes, you know, led by the Obama administration. Yeah. Oh, yeah. All right, we should probably just go to the game cam. Yeah, I think that we can do that because it's our solo cast, which means we, you know, if you're new to our podcast, then you have no idea what we're about to do. But we're going to jump on over to that now, and you're about to find out. Yeah. So, it's darker in here. It's got dark. It's a little darker. We still got lights on us, which is nice, but it's mood lighting. We added these orange lights down here. It kind of makes it nice. Zachary. Yeah, dude. No need to tell me what's going on. What's going on? Nate, come on, give it to me. Can we go over somewhere? Can you take us somewhere? What do I normally do? You haven't done it in a long time. Let's go. Oh, that's right. It's me. I thought you were the one that does it. All right, here we go again. Sorry, it's been a while. All right, let's... Let's go over to the... Game Cam. Game Cam, Game Cam, Game Cam. Oh, man. Flashbacks, bro. Yeah, dude. Welcome back to the Game Cam. You know, when Zachary and I were, you know, raised going to the church, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we just couldn't wait to get home after church to play Mario Kart 64. Dude, that was the game. Nintendo 64. So, originally, whenever we were doing our solo cast, we would play a game of Mario Kart, at the end of every single talk we had. But here we are. Yeah. I think we've played the battles on Mario Kart over seven times. This is the... This is my... This is going to be the end of the seventh. Yeah, which means we've played four matches, seven times. So, we are playing Skyscraper. Yes. And if you've played Mario Kart, you know what the heck we're talking about. Let's have some fun. This is the good one, baby. We're both going to be pretty rusty, but this is going to be fun. I'm going to smash. Okay, okay, okay. Okay. Now, who are you going to be? I choose after you choose, dude. I choose based off who you choose. Whatever, dude. Let's do youngest. Let's just see how youngest works. Because normally, back when we were younger days, you would just go instantly Yoshi, no matter what. Yeah, I'm going to go Yoshi. Ah, cheater. The way it goes. Cheater. That music you're hearing in the background comes from yours truly, Nay Nay from the Bay. Nay Nay, Nay Nay, Nay Nay from the... I wrote 15 or 16 little tiny songs for our game cam. And so I wonder which one I've chosen to play right now, because I can't hear it right now, but I'll hear it in post. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, here we go. Oh, my God. We're playing. Oh, shut up, dude. I didn't even realize. Oh, wait. How do we play? No. Oh, wow. You you had a red shell and you just messed that up. Oh, another red shell. Oh, this is so not good for me. Oh, no. Oh, I knew I should have turned. Move, move, move. Oh, nice. Nice mind drop, baby. For a second there, I thought. Yeah, that was beautiful. I don't know where you are. Jumping, jumping, jumping. Oh, wait. What is this world? Yeah. Nope, nope, nope. Oh, of course you get the star. Yeah, chase me. Get over here. No, chase me. Get over here. Come chase me, dude. Um, it's best out of three, right? Two out of three. Yeah. Yeah. If I won one, you won one, we do another one. But it's first to two. You could use that red shell if you wanted and try to get me. I could totally. Oh, my goodness. Oh, straight up missile, bro. Oh, come on. Yeah, come here. Come here. Where are you going? How did you do that? Yeah, dude. That was weird. That was a great jump. Shoot me. Shoot me, Nate. Um, if you're just listening right now, this is probably really weird. You should probably hop on YouTube or something and watch it. No, this is totally not... Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on! I'm going. Where are you going? Where are you going? Come on, Nate. Use those green shells, dude. I'm going to. Get Risky Bisky with it. Come on. It's our first match in a long time. I want to win. We both want to win. I'm coming, dude. I'm going! I'm going! Oh, you son of a... I had you, dude. I had you! There's some lucky misses going through now. Oh, he overshot that one. Why do you keep getting the green? Yeah, because the universe is working. Oh! Oh my gosh, I made it. Nope! Yeah! I knew you were going to have that one. Alright, that was a tough round. I felt like I was... Well, we both were distracted. Alright, so if I win this next round... I don't care. If Zach wins, we play for a third round. Yeah, no, I'm going to get this one. That was a tough start. Three, two, one. The real way to win is just to be aggressive from the start. And not like that. Boom! Not like that. Oh, I could have gotten you to fall into the pit and gotten two. Oh, I missed the box. Oh, snap. Oh, snap. And you took my box from me. Yep, come on. Come on, come on, come on. Come on, dude. Come on, dude. Yes! Oh, shoot. Oh, dude, what's with you and the red shells, dude? Yes! Dude, this is great, man. I'm playing strong. You are playing strong. Are you? No. Okay. Daddy's got a red shell now. Dude, no. Use yours. Yeah, use it. Use it. Oh, use it and abuse it, Nathan. Use it and abuse it. No, no, no! No! Dude, no! No! No, no, no! Let's take it away. 1v1, baby. 1-1-1. Oh, gosh. Damn it. No! What a hit! Ladies and gentlemen, Zack came around and really took the win on that one. Dude, that was kind of scary. That was wild. I needed that so bad. Wow, my eyes are burning. Alright, final match. This is intense. You got the boost. That's always a bad sign. Line aggressive from the start. Nope. Not gonna happen. Not gonna happen. Come on. Come here. Come here. Where you going, bud? That was not good. Nope. It wasn't. Oh, that was really bad. Woo! Dude, you just launched six shells and missed every single one. Yeah, because I was panicking. I was panicking. I really wanted it. Oh, he's got a star. Come on. Come on, Bubba. Come on, Bubba. Let's play. You wanna play? Let's play. Ooh. Oh! You wanted that hit so bad. Alright, let's see where you land. Oh, I just tried to kill him with a star and I fell off the... Oh, wait. You're waiting for me like a little... No! No! This is so bad! No-no-no! No! I panicked. Use that star while you can. That was scary. I gotta get you something good. Oh, man! You're lucky you got that star. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe I let you just take that. Mmmm. Mmm. Okay, I'm getting really bad drops right now. All good, dude. Really bad drops. No! Yes! Dude! Bulleted through the driveway. Honey, my wife, I'm sorry. Oh, dude. I honestly thought you were going to have the win. Because I played it so strong in the beginning. You did. I'm really happy. The game is like... It's weird because I was getting red shells, red shells, green shells, and then I got like bananas and I just got shit the last four pulls. I'm getting an upside down question mark. Damn, man. Banana. Well... Great job, dude. You probably feels good that you won, right? That feels good? I was nervous I was going to lose. So yeah, it feels good to win. You know, it's good. You're going to go on your retreat and I keep the earthly things. I will be honest. I'll be honest. Like, that is the most stimulating thing I've done in weeks. Oh, I can imagine. I'm a little bit perplexed right now. I'm a little bit like, I need to go meditate or something. My back hurts. I didn't even think about that. Echo. Garage on. As Mr. Glassman would say, boy, are my hands tired. Yes. Yep. Yeah, I watched one of his cast there. I listened to one of his cast there. Who's Mr. Glassman? Rick Glassman. Oh, Rick Glassman. He had Rainn Wilson. Yeah, Rainn Wilson. From The Office. Dwight. Who has his own podcast that's about like spirituality, which is really interesting. Yeah. He wrote a whole book on spirituality. Yeah, yeah. But he was on Rick's cast. He's a whole awakening. It was a great cast. I recommend watching it. But it just reminded me of how good his podcast is because he put so much editing into it. I would love to watch a bunch of podcasts right now, but everything's on hold. You sure? Yeah. That was a really good game. Cheers to you and good cast. If you've made it this far, thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Yeah, congratulations to you. This has probably been our longest solo cast we've done in a while. We're so used to going so long now. Yeah. Yeah. We'll probably get some complaints. I guarantee you someone's going to text us and be like, hey, just want to let you know, great podcast, but maybe make them a little shorter. Or like, hey, maybe you shouldn't be talking about that stuff for 30 minutes. Kind of lost me in the beginning. Yeah, you kind of lost me. You're probably losing other fans because we do this for the, we do this to, you know. Well, we have more subscribers and more people watching our long form cast now than ever before. So we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. But next week, we're so excited to have a guest from our childhood on, not next week, but in two weeks. I thought he was. Oh, it is him. We don't like to say names because we want it to be like, you know, when they come. Oh man. This is someone that we were. This person was so funny. They made us pee our pants. Made you pee your pants. Did you never pee your pants? You're going to pee your pants in two weeks. I hope so. They're going to be sitting in the hot seat right where my camera is right now. We are so excited to have them. And then we have another guest who's traveling all the way from Oregon, literally driving from Oregon just to be in our studio. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, that is incredible. And then we have another guest after that. We'll still go from there. Love you, buddy. Love you, dude. Next time I see you, it will be after some intense healing. Yeah, next time everyone sees you, we'll be after some intense healing. That's a good point. Good point. All right. Thank you, everybody. Over and out. Over and out. We'll see you soon. We'll see you soon. Blessings on blessings on blessings. Have gratitude. I have gratitude. Everyone have gratitude. Thank you. Bye. Thanks for being a Mortal Kombat fan and being here. Next time, we will have other things to talk about with no fear and nothing else we need. So be sure to listen and give your votes down in the comment section below!