Midlife Mastery - with Daniel Wagner
Midlife - the main words associated are 'crisis' and 'spread'. But what if we challenge the societal narrative and make midlife the opportunity of our lifetime? What if it was our invitation to become more intentional, live more purposeful, and use our accumulated wisdom to contribute to the world around us? In Midlife Mastery we'll explore ways to do that. So that the best is yet to come.
Midlife Mastery - with Daniel Wagner
Pete Craig on Rediscovering Your True Self: A Guide to Navigating Midlife
Ever feel like life's not panning out the way you planned? You're not alone. My special guest, Pete Craig, joins me to unpack his journey of self-discovery and transformation during midlife. A life mastery enthusiast, Pete opens up about his own realizations and the changes he has made to create a more fulfilling and aligned lifestyle. Together, we try to decode the 80/20 rule—to listen to the 80% signals that our bodies give us, not just be swayed by the 20% that stem from our minds.
Does the blame game sound familiar? We all do it. But, Pete and I chat about how scapegoating can obstruct our healing process and hold us back from achieving peace within ourselves. One of the antidotes we explore is mentorship—how seeking wise, experienced guides can make a difference during challenging times. We also stress the importance of self-reflection and the need to create space to process and reconcile our experiences.
In the whirlwind of life, we often lose touch with our true selves. Pete and I move on to discuss the essential journey of rediscovering our authenticity. We touch upon the process of peeling back the layers to find our true selves and the traits required to navigate change and transition. We also explore how living in the present moment can transform our lives, helping us foster joy and cultivate a lifestyle that nourishes us. Embrace the adventure of midlife mastery and make the ride that is life more fulfilling!
Welcome Daniel Wagner here for midlife mastery and in episode one, the actual first episode you could say it's episode two, because I've done one by myself. It is my first guest, all my podcast, and I'm really excited and happy to bring to this show a good friend, a very dear friend for many years, mr pete craig. So, pete, welcome to midlife mastery.
Speaker 2:Thank you, daniel, thank you very, very happy to be here with you.
Speaker 1:So you decided last minute. This morning we had a call we catch up regularly and I just said hey, would you want to jump On the record, call with me and do this podcast? You said yes, without actually knowing what we're about to talk, which is maybe the best way. So let's just get started with life mastery. What's the what's the point why we're doing this podcast? We want to bring awareness to the fact that there are millions of people, man and women but my own experience, obviously, as a man struggle through the middle part of their life and many times in these years, realization dawns on us that life hasn't quite worked out as we wanted. A wake up, event happens, a shock happens, divorce has happened, big, big changes happen and, knowing you for almost 20 years, I've seen you go through these changes and you watched me go through these changes. So I want to just give people a quick snapshot of where you are today. What is life like today, what you up to, what's the mission, what you're in service, to share a little bit about your life today.
Speaker 2:That's a really big question, because there's so much happening right now in terms of your complete change of lifestyle, a complete change of focus and direction. What is constantly chasing, constantly comparing and always trying to get ahead to one which is much more, much more relaxed, much more aligned and much more nourishing tomorrow and so long to my own purpose in life. And so for, perhaps for the first time in many, many years, actually feel very grounded, very connected to who I am as a person and what I actually need, rather than constantly looking outside and looking at the people I'm with Before Feedback as to whether I'm doing well or not. For the first time, for the first time, I'm listening to my own body. I'm not even listening to my mind much the time. I'm actually listening to my body and what my body needs. I'm being guided by that, and it's brought me a great deal of peace, a great deal of focus and allowed me to find new interest and new purpose.
Speaker 1:So I could bring up some photographs now of you about 20 kilos heavier, looking really unhappy in your body in your life. So people don't know you Just see you as you are today. Just give me an idea on your midlife how old are you? Where are you in middle, in midlife? So I'm 53 now cool. So there's so many of us in the 40s 50s experiencing this huge opportunity to actually start doing what we need to do to make ourselves happy, and that does not come from a selfish place but from something that wants to emerge. But today you're having great nutrition, you doing great exercise. I even met your partner and you know I'm really loving beautiful relationship. You're very adventurous. You just came back from america doing all these explorations. So when you spoke about listening to your body for some people that might be what is he talking about? How do I'm listening to my body? I'm listening. I can't hear anything. What do you mean by that and which techniques or modalities have you explored to bring that Awareness from mind to body? Hard?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really, really good question. It's not an easy one to answer because primarily it's experiential the experience. You have to have the experience in order to really connect with it, and I think that's something that we don't do enough of these days. You were, society as a whole is so mind focused, so outward looking, that we forget. And practices like meditation and I've meditated for twenty five plus years, I know you have as well meditation is really the thing that's first started me to bring myself, bring me inside again, bring me back in, to like this place that, actually, is always there, that we can call home and where we can find solace, where we can find true happiness and true peace.
Speaker 2:And I know those words can sometimes trigger people and people thinking what's he talking about? How do you find happiness inside yourself? How do you find peace with inside yourself? The piece that we're so often looking for does reside within us with concert, because we're constantly looking outside, we're looking for things beyond us to make us happy. It doesn't never happens. You familiar with this, I'm familiar with it. You know where we've changed. We've changed certain things because you think I'm not, when I've got that I'll be happy. When I've got that I can rest. When I've got that, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you get there. And there's another thing that says, hey, I'm over here, chase me. And we end up in this constant group Outward looking space.
Speaker 2:So for me, breath meditation was the first time I think that there was something else I could connect to. Even then, in the early days of meditation, even then I was still very much in my head. And it's only in the last four years when I've started to look at other practices, things like heart, the heart math institute and the studies and research they've done around. Yeah, the heart connection to the brain and the connection to the breath and what studies have shown is that eighty percent of the messages that go to our brain come actually from our body. Yeah, yeah, it's like the eighty twenty rule. Again, only twenty percent of the messages that our brain acts on our thought and mind driven. The rest of those messages, signals, come from our bodies. Yeah, we ignore those and we just focus on that twenty percent that are coming from outside, that have been stimulated from outside and through gike, those studies, and through other studies into breath work modalities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's allowed me to really come much deeper into myself and become more in tune to quiet in the mind and touch, you start to gike, realize that behind every thought there's a feeling and emotion and we can start to tune into where that feeling and emotion is within the body, what it feels like, how it is, not with a, not with the desire to expel it or to release it or to let it go in some way. What a project in any way, but actually from a perspective of let's listen to this and just let's notice that actually, this feeling, this emotion I'm having, is just energy. It's just a pattern of energy within the body and if we give it enough attention, what we notice is that it starts to change and it's constantly changing. Yeah, it's the thought that makes us keep it stuck.
Speaker 1:You, you put it, you're putting, too, so many Deep concept here not just concept, but deep realizations that I guess, as you said, you need to experience yourself. But this is in such a stark contrast to what most people are living today, even with the modalities, and I know you went very deep in the breath work. I have my own breath of experiences and did journeys and that's very, very powerful. That my own way of of listening to the body. But what you shared right now makes sense if you are more receptive to what your body, the unconscious mind, wants to tell you and tells your brain. But we are constantly Stimulated by the outside, chasing something. What that means is we're repressing, rejecting, pushing away and At one point and I think this is what happens in midlife, if we do it long enough at one point the, the floodgates, yeah, open and you cannot hold it back anymore. And this is when these shocking Crisis events seem to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, take me back actually to to an event and this is for people who don't know you, let's say, just seven, eight years ago. But we started our venture into Corathon and wanted to work with men to leading them to liberation, which was a strap line. You were still running a property education company and you were still Chasing the dream driving your Mercedes. Yeah, very different lifestyle. Taking it back to your internal world, how was it actually? Because on the outside you, you played a good game when you shared your CV with people. It was impressive. Yeah, it was actually going. On the inside, that was not aligned.
Speaker 2:It's interesting and I wrote a piece, I think shortly after that, which I published, which was about the color shedding of masks, and you just mentioned that. And Over over years, over time, we, if we look back, we actually find that we're constantly putting on masks in order to fit in to society, all friendship groups, business situations, to allow us to perform in a certain thing that's perhaps not truly aligned with who we are, and and we learn this behavior from childhood. We learn this behavior from schools. We're taught how to present at interviews, we're taught how to prepare and get ourselves ready to put forward a A, an aspect of ourselves that's going to be attractive to an employer or attractive to a future partner or whatever it is, and we learn even at that age, in a very subtle way, to hide who we really are.
Speaker 1:So what's behind this? Is it you think it's simply the fear that we learn early that who we are as we are Isn't right or good enough or enough?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's that. It's not right. We, over over our childhood and just throughout life, yeah, we have so many examples where Something happens and we make it wrong or we do something can someone else makes it wrong and we attach ourselves to those. So then we make an effort next time not to be like that. So we're constantly like changing and evolving and putting on masks, putting on different collect faces in order to present ourselves in a way that's going to be acceptable both. So how did that? Internally and to others outside.
Speaker 1:So how did that feel? Because I knew you back then, you were friends back then. Yeah, how was your internal world?
Speaker 2:It never felt at peace. It never felt at peace. It always felt like I was striving for something that was beyond me, and it was quite during that period that I started to tap into this. You know idea that actually, if I strip everything away, if I take everything away, if I take all the stories away, if I take all of the collect material possessions away, what's left? And Is that enough?
Speaker 1:What are you buying?
Speaker 2:Actually, after it took a while because there was some painful incidents that happened that collect took all of that stuff away from me without me having to consciously do it, which forced me into this process of deep introspection and through that introspection then started to develop Interception, which is the, the kite, the ability to listen to and sense what's going on within you. And, yeah, through that process, having it, having had everything pulled away, I actually was able to like reconnect with who I am and start to actually Kind of rebuild my own belief in who I am as a person and and so link that back to certain points where there's been nothing on the line, where I haven't been able to, where I haven't been trying to prove something to anyone, and I've had confidence. Those interactions been pure.
Speaker 1:Sorry, there was a slight delay on the line so I was two or three times interrupting you. So there are two things that really fascinate me, similar to my own life experience and we had that again and again since we know each other. It seems to be like a parallel Incidents, yeah, that these painful events you spoke to that ultimately made you realize that what was left was All that was needed and that was complete. Yeah, but it wasn't voluntary, right, it was like it's been taken away from you and I find it fascinating because so often that's what happens in midlife. And I wonder if that's just the blessing that we cannot see at that moment, because I remember how painful it was losing the company, losing the driving license, having the divorce, losing the status, the identification with the persona, but I so carefully crafted over years, right, my stage, persona, right. So I wonder if I wonder if some very deep enlightened people make conscious Choices to change it. But for most people I know it's been. Something gets taken away, some event out of sight, outside of our control, brings those deep life changes. Yeah, that's my experience. But here's the second part of interest me you said so.
Speaker 1:I became who I am, or remember who I am. I'm not exactly the word, the words you used, but would you, is that something you remember from early childhood? How would you know that this is who you are? Is there an inner da, da da. Is there the violins or lights coming on, or is it a knowing in your heart? I mean, how esoteric is that? Because if you listen, I remember for years in seminars you sit in the audience and the guy on stage says listen to your heart. I'm like, how do you do that? How do I listen to my heart? How do you buddy or follow your heart? Yeah, right, when you speak to coming back to who you are truly are, how do you know what's the Sign?
Speaker 2:for me it was simple, very simple. It was just this sense of relief, a sense of relaxation, a sense of actually just being. Yeah, I was no longer needed to do, I could just be.
Speaker 1:Got it, got it, yeah, got it.
Speaker 2:And even so, it's still fat, it still sounds like impossible, but I think it is. It's very much one of those things that you experience and I think if you have people around you, if you have Like coaches, you have guides, you have friends who support and who actually listen, and I think this is another one of the issues that I see is that so many of us and you mentioned earlier that we'd had a call this morning and that we have these calls quite regularly it's so often people don't have someone to talk honestly and openly to and or Someone that will actually truly listen to what they have to say, and that leads us to be a place where we have these very shallow Relationships that don't invite or encourage us to look beyond the service, and actually it's the magic that lies beyond, just below the surface.
Speaker 1:I know that you are working as a coach and you are Cultivating the. The quality of deep listening is one of your bullet points. Even on your website, I look last at least, and there is something to be said for that. We are living at such a speed that we're skipping over the important parts, we're not reading between the lines, with the skimming, with skim reading and skimming over life, right, yeah, but let me ask you about this fascination around coaching, because I used to teach from stage and I now moved into a consulting and coaching role With some of my clients.
Speaker 1:When did you start to seek out mentors and coaches yourself? Because I wanted to ask you about this Transformation. So we know today, life's great. We know it wasn't that way. Yeah, life had taken things away to force you to look at yourself in, maybe at the Nearness you weren't comfortable with. Who helped you through it? Which techniques who did you seek out or did they come to you? Or how was that? Because I know today you got a great support network, which for most men is Still novel. To ask for help, yeah, not, not common.
Speaker 2:But let's come so not common, not common and not comfortable, and I think this is part of it. You know, we've also become very comfortable with life and, as a result, we suppress in order to remain comfortable and actually, while we're why we continue to remain comfortable, all of that stuff or that suppression, is taking so much effort and say, taking such a toll on us. But to go back to your question, it's interesting because I think when I think back to my early, my late teens and my first collect job in management and I didn't realize it at the time but then the people around me there were Mentors and advisors and coaches, but not in, not with those labels. They were people that I, that I looked up to for guidance and that I took support from you know. So, even in those early days, I recognized that there were people. Now, as I look back, that that played that role for me and Throughout my early career in management because it was always in small, relatively small businesses, anything from a few hundred thousand turnover to ten million turnover and those, even in those businesses, because they weren't big corporates there was always an element where I Was coaching, even though at the time I didn't realize that's what I was doing, but I was coaching, I was nurturing, I was teaching, I was supporting, I was offering that, that ear to listen in those early days.
Speaker 2:But at the time that did all of this happened for me, there was For me. I didn't initially reach out to anyone because I knew I had this sense that it was something I had to do on my own and I was able to rely on quite certain kind personal development processes and the Meditation and just all of these things to really allow myself to go in. And I was so Collect her, so stripped back, so raw as a result of this process that actually I wasn't afraid of what was gonna come up, whereas before I had been afraid of it and I didn't want to look there. If right now it was like I, there isn't anything else that can hurt me anymore, wow, it's not quite true, because there were, there were things that came up that I had to face that were extremely painful still, but it was really just through Allowing myself time, yeah, and not being distracted, yeah, and there was an element of quite shutting myself away to a large degree and cutting myself off in order to allow myself to process what had gone on, to reflect back and and even to take responsibility for my part in what happened, which, again, is something you know.
Speaker 2:All too often we don't do. We constantly look to put the blame somewhere else, and Actually, very, very easy to do. Yeah, we're still players in our own game and, yeah, we have to accept the fact that we had a part to play in that. And unless we can reconcile that, then there's always gonna be we're always gonna be blaming something outside and with. There's always gonna be a part of us that we don't heal and that we don't, we don't make peace with.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Again, you spoke into so many important aspects here the Taken responsibility for your life, the idea of saying that I am, I am responsible, fully responsible, everything that is in my life today, without force, humility or Egoic pride or blame, or just it's just what it is. Yeah, right, the circumstances do not determine the outcome. Yet we love to believe that we blame the world, our background, and that is a game that ends up being you're being a victim, right, you are not. You're not taking charge. And not about charge, about Pushing forward. Because the second thing you spoke that really resonated the idea of slowing down.
Speaker 1:I remember when we relaunched, simply conscious, a few years ago it was number two was slowed down. Yeah, and it's so hard in a society where we feel we're behind, where everything is speeding up, and that's one of the blessings, I think, of the COVID years, that most people were forced to slow down and Face things they had put out, put off for a long time, and it also showed many people that they live they thought they had to live up to. That moment is maybe not the full picture. Yeah, right, because what, what I see with you and what I'm moving into is living more of our True nature, true of our gifts, which brings me the next question.
Speaker 1:As we get older people around us Hopefully we have real friendships and real Clean mirrors that can give us feedback they start to reflect what our true gifts are, the things we came in with that we Never appreciate it because they were naturally part of who we are. Yeah, and my sense is, as we get older, we realize if I just use that gift, I stay in flow, life is pretty effortless and there's still value that, even in a marketplace, can create this exchange and give me the abundance that I'm looking for. What would you say, mr Pete Craig? Are you gifts, the one that you came in with the people that people tell you to not make it sound like, yeah, I am this and I am that, but what do people tell you? Are you give?
Speaker 2:It's a really interesting question and it's tough to hear that as well. So it's when it's one of those things where, when people say it, there's a, there's like a little bell that goes off that says, yeah, that's me, and you get excited and then it's quite, oh no, but that can't be me, and you can like push it away. You resist it for a little bit because you don't actually want to accept that this beautiful thing that someone is just reflected back to you, is who you are, yeah, and it's yeah. It's very hard to accept that, yeah, and I think the first time I really allowed that to happen was was when I was in Mexico and I spent 21 days, 28 days, in Mexico with a group of people that I'd never met before and we went through this. We were collecting in breathwork, training but a whole bunch of other things as well and at the end we had to reflect back to each other and what we saw and the reflection there's one that always sticks in my mind.
Speaker 2:He's actually a client of mine now I coach him and he sat in front of me's 27 years old, and he sat in front of me and he said he said what I've seen you, he said is Something like a block of collect, solid concrete that's grounded into the earth. Naturally, that provides this collect, stability, this solidness, but it also reaches right up to into the sky like a white light. And he said there's this aspect of you that is almost like connected to spirit but also deeply rooted into the ground. And that was a very powerful reflection that I struggled to listen to but, finally enough, I moved to the next person and the next person gave a very similar reflection and and what I'm is that people feel this, that people feel a sense of Purity, a sense of safety, a sense of being held, heard and supported in whatever they need in that moment.
Speaker 1:It's very beautiful and and I Love the fact that you spoke earlier what that means because, as you say, when somebody reflects that truth and this is a truth with capital T Something inside of you feels so seen. You're like, yes, yes, that's me, I'm seen, and immediately this little fearful voice oh my god, if I own this, if I said it about myself, would that be arrogant? How could I? It's a gift, so I can't. You don't, somehow, you don't own the gift because you've been given it right. You didn't work for the gift, you didn't struggle to get it, it's just the thing you've been coming with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I find that, I find it's very beautiful and I think, and I think the masks, the masks that we put on over the years, take us further and further away from that, and that's why often this process is a process of similar use, the peeling and an onion analogy. You're like peeling off, peeling off, peeling off, peeling off, and gradually people start to feel that thing, those gifts that are yours, that you were born with, that you came into this world with.
Speaker 1:It's not ironic that For the first half of our life or longer, we Accumulate more, more, more, more, more, and then we start stripping back back, back, back back, and you might end up where you started at the beginning, with this humble knowing that none of it is you're doing truly, that there is just a being that Experiences life in in all its, hopefully in all its, in all its breadth and, and which, yeah, hmm, yeah, hmm.
Speaker 2:But I know.
Speaker 1:It feels like no further questions.
Speaker 2:I must say as well. It's like this whole collect process doesn't have to be painful, doesn't have to be hard, for people is sometimes it's just a realization that there's more to life. You and sometimes you're at a position in your career where you actually think there must be more, and I've been in that place before as well.
Speaker 1:So you've been a coach to others and having been through your own various changes, and I want to make sure people listening neither I and I hope I can speak for you. Pete, we're not coming from a place. This is how it works and here is my advice to you. We're just sharing our personal experience, hoping that part of you resonate. Saying it's me too and possibly I'm not quite out the other end what do you think is needed in form of qualities, character traits, to embrace the upcoming change? Because people sensing it I sensed for years, before it really came, that something was a little bit off. I tried to not hear it. It's like la la, la la, but I knew something wasn't right. Yet I kept just building, going on more activity, more and more, more. What do you think, which character traits are necessary to move into this transition, or who you are?
Speaker 2:There's really just one, and it's one that's come to me recently as recently as my last trip to the US and that's willingness. Love it. Willingness is actually all we need. It doesn't matter what else we do. If we have willingness, the rest will fall out, and I think yeah.
Speaker 1:That's very deep. Let me, because I had words in my mind which I thought you might say right. So I thought of courage and surrender and letting go. Let me just sense if all of this is encapsulated in what you're saying. Okay, help me out. Willingness Put some more words to it. What is a willing person? What does it mean?
Speaker 2:So willingness means being open to the fact that there's a different way of seeing things, a different way of being, being curious enough to explore that with an open heart and an open mind and an expectation that you're going to have some reaction to whatever comes up. Yet you maintain a willingness to explore and to allow and to feel Got it, got it, got it, got it.
Speaker 1:So there is curiosity, there is openness of mind, body, heart. So personal curiosity right now Do you think that this is part of every person's being, or soul, or inner world, that there is this desire to grow, evolve? Because what makes a human being not say, hey, I got my food, I got my house, I'm good. What even makes us strive or want to evolve, or seek liberation or enlightenment or other worldly mystical experiences, or just happiness?
Speaker 2:Why are we seeking I think there's an element of the desire to evolve, an element of we're trying to find our way home and at birth we have all of that. We, in that moment when we're born, we are. We just are. We have none of the programming that we build up through our collect childhood years and through our adult years. We have none of these collect expectations of what should be and what shouldn't be. We just are. And there's a sense of a desire to come home to what we know is true and that we could go in a whole different direction. But that doesn't mean this physical body that's back to. We're coming home to the essence of what we are, to spirit, to consciousness.
Speaker 1:I feel the same and I feel that there is a remembering inside. You said earlier how do you know this? Experiencing you just know. Is it like? How do you know you're in love? Every human being who has ever experienced it would recognize it and say that's the one. And in the same realm.
Speaker 1:I think this is what authenticity or integrity points to. If somebody can be truthful in expressing what wants to be expressed and it comes out in a clean and clear way, that's an authentic expression, which means it's in flow. Right, I started a little bit flow, prone states and all that, and being a musician, writing music, being connected to creativity and that source of limitless creative power that that is the universe, has always, always helped me. I would love to ask one last question, which no idea if you have an answer to, but I hope that our people listening to this episode, who are now curious, noticing that maybe they're not yet living in flow or authentic expression, or haven't come home to themselves, if there was one step or one tip or one advice I know other, better words come to me what would you say to them?
Speaker 2:Be kind and gentle to yourself as you begin to open up to the fact that there could be something different and as you begin to allow yourself to have that willingness to accept that there could be something else, there could be a different way of experiencing this. Hmm, quite often we're encouraged to push through, to break through, to smash, to chase all of these things that take a lot of effort and a lot of energy and in doing so, again, many times, we're suppressing, you know quite feelings. We're just breaking through something, rather than actually listening and thinking hold on a second, it's time to just slow down, just rebalance, regroup and then move forward again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sometimes it's great, sometimes it's good just to actually be kind, to be gentle and just to not beat yourself up, which is something, again, we do too much yeah, especially when you have recognitions that you could class or judge as a mistake or oh my god, I've been such a fool, I've done this, I've done this, I've done this. Yet everything led you up to being here today. Even if you're listening to Peter Nye or Peter Nye talking all these billions of events and years moving to this moment, michael Singer explains. It's so beautiful when he like, oh my god, all the things that had to take place for this moment to happen to me, as it does right now. That blows your mind, which is good. When the mind's blown, you open.
Speaker 1:One more question came up spontaneously and I wanted to know if you could give Pete, who was in the midst of struggle of being stripped bare, if you could have told yourself something back then that would have eased the pain or helped you. What would you have said? Because from now, today, you're looking back thinking, wow, that was a rough right. But if you had known it ends up today, what would have helped you to face it or go through it?
Speaker 2:I, to be honest, I think that's part of the journey. I don't think I would give that Pete, that version of me, any advice at all, but if I had, then the struggle wouldn't have been what it was and the lessons that I learned wouldn't have been the same and the transformation wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective, if that's the right word, you know, I think perhaps if there was one thing and you mentioned it before when you were talking about Michael Singer the one thing I would say is just try to be in this moment as much as possible, because that's all you can do. You know. Everything else order the pain. If we can just stay in this moment and take one step at a time, one moment at a time, then actually in the present moment nothing else exists. Pain doesn't exist, fear and excitement don't exist, because those are either past or future and they're thought based. But actually in this present moment, all there is is joy and bliss.
Speaker 1:I couldn't end on a higher note and joy and bliss. Thank you, pete, really thank you for this conversation. My pleasure, all the best and I look forward to continuing our beautiful friendship and deepening as we ride through the remaining years of this beautiful experience here on this planet. Thank you, man, thank you all the best. Thank you, bye, bye.