The Gospel According to Joshua Tree: How U2 Helped Me Recalibrate My Nervous System

Join Enrique on a deeply personal journey as he reveals how U2's The Joshua Tree, released in March 1987, became his blueprint for performance psychology and personal recalibration. Beyond its status as a seminal rock album, Enrique explores how each track served as a stage in his own transformative training ritual, guiding him from an unregulated, emotionally dysregulated state—marked by substance use, avoidance, and weight gain—to a new, calibrated self.

Discover how U2, as Irish outsiders decoding the American myth, created a "sonic map" for breaking down and rebuilding. Learn how the album's precise rhythms, like "Where the Streets Have No Name" at 126 BPM, provided the ideal Zone 2 cardio tempo for somatic expression and mental clarity. Enrique delves into how songs like "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For" speak to unaddressed spiritual hunger and trauma echoes, while "With or Without You" dissects the addiction to ambivalence in relationships.

Hear how The Joshua Tree tracks map to cycles of shattering, drift, counterforce, somatic flashback, freeze, collapse, dissociation, reattachment, breakthrough, death drive, and generational grief, ultimately leading to completion and recalibration. This episode also touches on Lacanian concepts, illustrating how the album helped untangle and re-knot personal psychic structure—a "borromean engineering with a reverb pedal".

"You’re not vibing with the music—you’re syncing to a survival algorithm." This is more than a podcast; it's a recalibration protocol, offering insight into how a timeless album can guide your own journey toward success and greatness. elevate.epo

Transcript

The Gospel According to Joshua Tree: How U2 Helped Me Recalibrate My Nervous System
===

[00:00:00] I always get excited anytime I get to talk about one of my favorite albums. in March of 1987, U2 released arguably the most influential album in the history of rock and Roll Joshua Tree at the time. Was a phenomenon that was born out of the 1985 live aid performance where Bono showed the world that he could be one of these, political lightning rods.

Somebody who could start a movement and be a voice of a generation that spoke to the pain of transition, the horror that. minorities experience. and resonated when the band decided to put out its magnum opus.

the journey that. Someone with an immigrant background would normally undertake. The album itself is produced by four Irish boys who the original minority group. they understand what it's like to be on [00:01:00] the outside looking in, and this is a conversation and a piece that they're putting out there.

In which they're trying to make sense of America and their interpretation of what the United States is and what America is, and primarily what freedom is. through that, we get introspective journey that tracks a lot of personal pain, personal growth, numbness and dissociation, but a recalibration and a re-understanding of what truly is important in life.

if we look at that album strictly for the art it produces, we can definitely Value the components and the very technical ways in which the Edge was able to revolutionize sound. The unique ways in which Bono was able to express his pain .

That cuts through a lot of Human defenses and is really visceral and palpable in real time. Larry Mullen Jr. And Adam Clayton deliver a very tight sonic rhythm that [00:02:00] gets you moving and dancing even when the song itself may not be appropriate.

The rhythm still takes you away sometimes. But this isn't a conversation to talk about you two's technical musical work, because I'm not a musician, I just dabble. What I am gonna focus on is how Joshua Tree is the blueprint for performance psychology, how it's in the way in which it's delivered, Joshua Tree becomes a very seminal moment.

For a lot of people speaks to a lot of personal growth and for me it is, the origin story to where I am now because I did find healing in these tracks that spoke to the pain and amazement that is freedom, and everything in between and the ways in which we have to navigate that.

as we wrap up our first week of June, and look to set off our [00:03:00] spring and style , let's celebrate one of the greatest albums to be produced, of our generation, and look at it from a psychological perspective. This is Precision Cycle brought to you by Elevate epo.

I'm Enrique. Let's open it up

My personal story begins with a very, unregulated person who had. gone. The route that a lot of people are supposed to go, you go to school, you graduate, you get a job, you work in corporate America, you have a family, you own a car, and you do all the things that you're supposed to do as an adult.

except that didn't feel natural to me. I was very uncalibrated in the 2010s, because corporate America had really. changed me and taken a lot outta me. And having to cope with that meant having to do a lot of things that were analgesic .

So that looks like substance use, that looks like avoidance into other devices. And you get lost [00:04:00] in them so much so that your food ends up being the best friend. you end up where I was about 305 pounds, extremely overweight, close to morbid obesity, and someone who definitely in their forties was not tracking towards health and wellness and longevity.

and so I knew I needed a change. I knew that change needed to come internally because I had tried the other ways. I had tried the diets, I had tried the personal trainers. I had tried to willpower my way through it and realize that while some people are about that life and they can very easily manufacture the motion that they need to have that commitment in the gym.

For me, it was something that wasn't native. It was something that I had lost. and what I found was that. Beginning the process of being recalibrated meant finding material that spoke to me. And so the first mornings in June, back in 2019 I would go to Jack Kemp Stadium over at Occidental College, go to their track and throw [00:05:00] on, after my warmup, Joshua Tree.

put that album on and started my daily routine. immediately I was lifted to another place, through the guitar work of the Edge, through the lyrics of Bono, through the rhythm, precision of Adam Clayton and. Larry Mullen, I. Use this album as my 60 minute ritual every day on the pre-core elliptical trainer while living in Las Vegas as motivation for that lift day in the sun 

And what I found was that the more and more that I would engage with this album, the more and more that it would allow me to push through the physical limits that I felt. That were only there in my head and really allowed me to focus, lock in and welcome the physical exercise and the somatic expression of [00:06:00] myself, because the music had lifted me into a place where it was now acceptable to do and that's just my own journey. That's my own, recalibration story. But what it speaks to is if I was able to find a voice that resonated within me. Because what I took from that experience and that album specifically was what I alluded to in the beginning. are Irish boys, they are the original minority group.

And for someone like myself who had grown up in between worlds. too fair skinned to really be radicalized and really, carry that intensity of my roots, but just broad enough to not be fully accepted. I was walking the same, line myself, oftentimes unsure of.

What my lane and [00:07:00] purpose and where my parameters were,

I became a highly fragmented person, somebody who was not operating under the sort of recalibrated dynamics that Precision Cycle teaches and helps people achieve. I was emotionally dysregulated in a way where it leaked all over the place. It was difficult to be successful in other realms of my life because I had, emotions from one dimension creeping into another causing me all kinds of internal confusion.

This confusion. Is heard in the Joshua Tree, it's almost a sonic map, to breaking down and rebuilding in real time. As we walk through those songs on that album, they speak to a recalibration that does occur as Bono moves us through this, musical journey.

track by track. Cycle by cycle, we see the recalibration in motion. What exactly does that look like? We [00:08:00] start the album with where the streets have no name, a song that talks about the cycle of shattering. the ego death. Escaping, the constructs of humanity. nowadays it seems like every street has a name. and everyone's making us respect the name But what this song really alludes to is true freedom. The idea that we could go somewhere where. we can define and paint this palette any way we want true freedom.

That is what Bono is describing and what the edge is able to sonically create with all of his delays and picking action. But if we take a look at that song specifically. We see how it's almost the perfect lead off song for any workout. The song itself is played 126 beats per minute.

It is played in a six speed. most songs are standard four, time, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4. where the streets have no name. speeds that up and is now a six time, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, [00:09:00] 6.

And you hear this very early on especially on the live version when Larry Mullen counts abandoned, that creates this effect where the song gets going. It really feels like a train leaving the station. And that really feels, especially on a morning run, when you get past that introduction where you have the edge, just introducing the world to dotted eight notes that are perfectly played using a memory man, delay effect box.

You immediately get transported into this somatic. Sense of wanting to really be active and get going, it's the perfect song that gets you into that zone two, level two of cardio, beats per minute, 1 26 because then you're now for fat burning. You're now in that moderate work zone where you're in between, serious, output and [00:10:00] the well elevated heart rate.

And it speaks to just. The visceral, somatic, evocative nature of the music and how it pulls you into action, gets you going, and immediately transitions you from this space of, I don't feel, my legs hurt. I'm tired. I don't wanna run this track to, you know what, we're here.

I'm feeling the blood flowing through my legs. I'm feeling the wind in my hair. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and if I just keep going it feels good the edge keeps me locked in with his precision playing. And Adam Clayton keeps that six feet going continues to attack that baseline with precision that gets you through those first five and a half minutes, and then you get to, I still haven't found what I'm looking for, and the cycle is the drift.

That endless seeking trauma echoes [00:11:00] I still haven't found what I'm looking for. I am on the road to find some kind of absolution some kind of self discovery. I know that there is more to me out there than I've yet to uncover.

this song speaks to that spiritual hunger that never really resolves. Because the wound itself was never named. that is therapy and pain in a nutshell, us being unable to name this pain that exists because we don't have the words for it, I still haven't found what I'm looking for speaks to that.

I go out and do one thing and feel it and experience it, but recognize that it's not the thing I need. So I do another thing, whether that's alcohol, drugs, dating, gambling. All these things, I'm looking for some kind of relief and satiation.

It's not there. It's not coming. so I keep looking and looking, and it speaks to that desperation people feel when they're in those dire straits, unable to reconcile themselves with the [00:12:00] expectations of their life, with the unmet needs they have. That is what this song really evokes in you 

On a workout, it may be a bummer, but let's think again, how the song itself is presented in a very uplifting, reverent way as if we're in a church and we're screaming out to the pastor and to God I know that I'm not perfect and I know that I've caused a lot of pain and sorrow 

But I am worthy of being saved because this pain exists. And again it's delivered and that naive immigrant mentality that first generation way of understanding freedom, Realizing that we have choices outside of traditional colonized, family dynamics and society, we're here to experience them sometimes we get ahead of ourselves and lost in ourselves.

that brings us to, with or without you? which for me is arguably, the greatest rock song ever [00:13:00] written because of what The Edge was able to do. Sonically and just the sort of the giness of the song itself. But if we're looking at the words Bono is singing, 

He's talking about the cycle of counterforce here. the addiction of ambivalence. Staying in between with or without you not knowing if I have to grow up, change or stay where I'm at, co-regulation mistaken for love, is what the song is really hitting at the performance of the intimacy itself 

Performance, inside the intimacy contract is what with or without you, is really at its core. and when we speak to that, we speak to how oftentimes we are in relationships where we are truly not ourselves. We are in relationships where we know that we're inauthentic 

Expressions of ourselves, and we need to come to that decision of whether or not we are going to be [00:14:00] apprehensive about that, or we're gonna make a change. I have always interpreted that song as being the crux and the catalyst for that change. it is a very beautiful song.

It is also a song that has extreme, imagery of pain felt by someone in a relationship with a borderline personality. because there is a lot of push pull there and you feel that and it's visceral in the work.

bullet to Blue Sky is the post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, track of Joshua Tree. It speaks to the injustice and how it rips through the body gets us to, running to standstill, which can't.

recently has been tied to the fentanyl outbreak and epidemics in the United States it speaks to the numbness, the learned helplessness of, depression. this song itself speaks to the cycle of addiction, depression, and silence. the stillness and quiet acceptance of whatever outcome [00:15:00] we're expecting. then comes, red Hill Mining Town. That is the sort of full on emotional collapse, illustrated in, in music form. Speaks to the masculine shame, legacy, despair that exists within people. Our inability to really balance our unfulfilled life with what is it that we're going to leave that next generation.

red Hill Mining Town really touches on that in God's country. That talks to the dissociation that occurs. it's the splitting and the salvation seeking that we undertake. it speaks to the manic phase of grief.

The way we chase light often to escape despair, not with clarity or a real plan, but instinctually and reflexively. I. trip three or Wire, that's where we come back to ourselves and our body. We finally feel something. We get moved. by someone or something that has finally broken through the defenses and cracked through all the ego [00:16:00] positions that we're in.

but that song is the reawakening. as you're on this physical journey on this album, this song really helps you. Get back to finishing strong. You're at a point where you're doubting yourself whether you want to continue, you're about 45 minutes into your workout.

This is when you realize, I only got 15 minutes to go. I can bear down. I can get through this There is the breakthrough, right? That's the realignment. That is death being whatever it is that is haunting us. We need to go through this process where we unlive it. And that is something that even Carl Jung, wrote about in the Red Book, his final work.

That he released after he had passed away, which is very controversial because people will say that it wasn't a true reflection of what Yung, wrote. It wasn't in line with a lot of his work. That's one take. another one is, hey, this is the words of a man who knew he was dying and wanted that to be his final way

[00:17:00] Seeing the world, let's look at that and use it as a valuable tool to add to Jung's works and really get his perspective on life. if we do that, then we understand that Jung's final perspective was that we give our devils as much power as they deserve, 

, We need to kill our heroes. We need to kill our ego. We need to kill the thing within us that has kept us trapped. That's what One Tree Hill really speaks to. it's mourning the moral compass that we shifted away from and now aligning ourselves to. And that is when the nervous system realigned, when we're willing to let go of. Old traditional habits, which we thought were baked into who we are personality wise. They were there because we either learned them through our families, church school, or whatever 

These habits have been bad for us, One Tree Hill speaks to how it's okay to mourn the loss of all that. But let's celebrate this week. Reawakening gets us to exit. That's the death drive. [00:18:00] That is something that Jacques Lahan talks about. that's what Freud was talking about way back when.

Some people just have death drives. in the context the union analysis and understanding archetypes and who we are from a personality perspective. We see the death drive here as, the shadow work, the shadow exposure to ourselves and how we are able to look into the parts of us that we don't show the world that we know is there.

The parts that we have shame about, that we're embarrassed about, oftentimes are scared of those particular portions of ourselves, examining the limits of our narcissism as Kohut would write, and understanding how. We self harm by stepping over those lines into ego, dystonic behavior, ego, alien behavior that we have been expressly shown is bad for us.

when we stop doing we kill that other version of ourselves. The one that kept to look for outside devices to really self soothe and regulate and are able to [00:19:00] now exit that pain, enter into a new reality. Mothers of the disappeared it's completion. It is the generational grief of carrying all of this pain, having worked through it 

Understanding that there's unresolved loss we have to carry and process in our own bloodlines, and that unresolved loss is physical. We lost human beings. We lost friends, family, et cetera. We also lost ourselves. But we're also losing cultural norms. things that anchored us in what we thought was us and are no longer looking to those things.

That tied us to a previous version of ourselves that was not effective and was not well calibrated. The legacy then is the recalibration being able to say, I was 310 pounds. And after going through a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly [00:20:00] consistent regimen, I am now able to be this new version of myself.

Which stands and sits in front of you today as Enrique as someone who is delivering Elevate dot epo as the person who has developed Precision Cycle, that is the recalibration in real time. That is how I made it, Why this is gospel. This is a gospel that Bono the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen deliver to the world because it's decoding an empire.

It's their take on America. Like the same type of, take that some first gen, kid growing up in Los Angeles, California, super confused and not really knowing how to navigate in the world. Sees freedom and sees this giant monolith as America, but not so much from a fear perspective.

From a perspective where we're in awe, that immigrant gaze of freedom, this is, the [00:21:00] American myth, right? We weren't singing for America, we were singing at it. that's what U2 was doing. it wasn't saying this is America. It was telling America, this is what I think you are.

and that really speaks to the reality that this album. Creates if we look at that through the Ian lens, the Boro nut concept, the real, the symbolic, and the imaginary, this album helps us in real time as we're going through the somatic.

Elements of healing, along with understanding the ways in which this music is helping to defragment our brains. how our reality. Begins to take shape because we start examining the symbols in our life, and we start to understand how a lot of them may live in this imaginary fear we've always placed them in, Mental health is a delicate balance between the real, the symbolic and the [00:22:00] imaginary.

The real exists as a symbol in the world. You've picked that up somehow. If you have an ePhone in your hand, symbology. From a symbology standpoint, we've come to understand that. iPhone is a cultural symbol. It's a status symbol. It's this mini computer, it's a smartphone. It's a gateway to social media.

It's the way that some people are able to make money. It has a lot of different meanings, right? And we've attached this meaning to it because it's a symbol. It means a lot of things to a lot of different people. If you take that iPhone and you throw it at somebody. Hurt them and make them bleed. It becomes now a weapon.

that is not unlike the way a lot of people who are victims of abuse see the world. food isn't just food, it becomes control. Alcohol isn't just alcohol. It becomes an escape. sex isn't just sex. It becomes dissociation. All these things Come with us trying to cope and manage our daily [00:23:00] life.

Now have meaning and have taken on certain symbol meanings within us. They sometimes then cross over into imaginary realms where these symbols now mean different things. For an eating disorder patient, for instance, ice cream can become deadly, if they've had the wrong experience. we see how the real exists as a product of your symbology.

But if your symbology has been distorted into imaginary, there is a problem And this album helps us recalibrate. That helps us take all of our symbols, what we thought we knew about the world. Puts it out in plain day for examination and then helps us reconcile the fact that our true symbols, our true north, is one particular way that we have now realigned ourselves with, and that is understanding that we're.

Gone through this journey of looking at ourselves, looking at all of our faults, our [00:24:00] weaknesses, our things that make us who we are, and we've decided that they're either gonna help us be a better version of ourselves or gonna use it to be the thing that makes us, whether away the power of the music is to understand that we can pick the former 

The power to move forward and be well calibrated and understand that there is a struggle, but that struggle is universally experienced, and is timeless redemption is an arc that is attractive to anyone. Especially when you're older in life, it means that you've come to terms with your own lack of self-awareness, and done the work to draw forward that component within you that is truly your core value proposition, and now that's what you're going to deliver.

So as you enter 50, like I am in six months. You get to understand that your life has been training to align you to what you really need to do. [00:25:00] that is Joshua Tree at its core. That is performance psychology at its core, and that is why the Joshua Tree is the perfect album. If you are looking to get on your weight loss journey, on your transformation journey, if you're looking to become that next version of yourself, you know you're capable of.

let me show you the seven dimensional aspects of your personality that we need to recalibrate to achieve full success. So you can be the type of person that is going to the gym seven days a week. You can be the type of person that puts in an hour workout like they're brushing their teeth.

You can be that person motivated to do the things you want to do, to look the way you wanna look, to lift as much as you want to lift to run as far as you run a run because you have done the self calibration that is evident in the Joshua Tree. That is evident in the work that Precision Cycle is able to [00:26:00] produce.

You have done that and that recalibration now is earned

quick production notes on U two's. Joshua Tree, like I said, one of the greatest sonically, musically that was put together, for its time. The album was released March 9th, 1987 on Island Records and was produced by Brian Eno, who is an ambient architect, very, famous with his work with Roxy Music.

Danny Lanois, who is the texture and emotional tension architect album, is the reason that push pull exists, really work to draw that component out of the band And then Steve, Lily White, who is a mix engineer on several key songs, including where the streets have no name. His genius is behind a lot of the amp effects, a lot of the sounds you hear. there's some key moments if you listen to the studio recording where the edge, comes in and it comes into that first, chorus and you hear the hollow sound [00:27:00] of.

air being pushed through a highly distorted and delayed, amplifier. That type of studio effect creates, that texture and that space and really grabs you as you're going through your day listening to this music.

And it's the type of thing that Steve Lily White learned how to do really well just create that little emotional foothold. Where emotionally you gain a little bit of purchase and you are able to just affect the entire nervous system. it was recorded at SSTS studios in Dublin, Dan's Moat House.

which is actually a converted, Georgian mansion. the songs were mixed and finished here at a and m Studios in Los Angeles. like I mentioned earlier, Joshua Tree was a product of the aftermath of live aid. bono had really showed with his raw vocal vocabulary in his work there that he could really be this political voice, which he became.

And you could really start to see that. Embodied in the [00:28:00] music, really speaks to American mythology. And the ban has described it as a sonic pilgrimage throughout America. their interpretation of what it feels like to be American as Irish immigrants in this country.

And that really spoke to me because I'm a first generation kid trying to figure it out myself. and defining my interpretation of what being American is. I think this album does a great job of it because it does illustrate, their take on r and b and soul music.

I think it works. of course there's spiritual undertones here. as Catholics, they are presenting this vision of freedom in America through that lens. you hear that through the lyrics as they often wrestle with sin and surrender. Salvation, contradiction. all of this rooted in the tension of faith.

Of, Bono's faith, and you feel that very viscerally. Again, somebody who's a first generation grew up in a Catholic household, this is all very primal [00:29:00] and real, and Bono was really touching that part of my soul at least. that was trying to navigate the complexities of, 

Of traditions and norms with all the new found freedoms of America. And then of course there was the iconic visual aesthetic of Joshua Tree. you had that Mojave Desert Motif. Black and white golds on the releases. Anton Corbin, somebody who defined that and really helped shape that vision, for what had become.

we saw the 20th anniversary release of Joshua Tree back in 2007. A remastered album had some additional, and outtakes. no major tour announced with that, but then the 30th anniversary in 2017, that one was a fully remastered, album with a re-release. And a bonus disc with live performances extensive materials and demos.

it also included a major world tour, which I actually had a chance to go [00:30:00] to at the Rose Bowl. Got to see that whole, show done. Live very good production, one of the best, venues to enjoy. this album, I think, that was a really great experience.

I haven't been able to catch any of the other following tours. but that one really resonated with me. It's one that I still stay with. Of course, they went on their supporting tour for this album back in 87. they produced a rattle and hum, documentary back in 1988.

All of that came out of this newfound direction of the band. 

Interesting note, 2017, 30th anniversary, a lot of good, supporting acts on that tour. they had, I believe at Pasadena we saw the Lumineers, so that was a good exposure for them. other venues have featured, high Flying Birds Noel Gallagher's Act, from Oasis.

they've, always put on, a lot of good performance or acts and they've always really been big fans of other acts in music. in fact, Bono was the reason I started to listen to the Killers because he found them way back and.

given [00:31:00] them, that space really speaking to their genius. hopefully, an episode here get you to think about the Joshua Tree a little differently. If you do enjoy that album. If you don't, hopefully you'll reconsider.

And if you've never heard it, hopefully you'll open up Spotify or whatever music. Software you use to enjoy the stylings of U2, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, who combined together U2 and create some of the greatest music that, the genre has ever seen.

there's a reason that they sell out, football stadiums regularly. and can have, Multi-day residencies at the sphere to open it up they are that consistent in their performance, they're that good at what they do and they are that profoundly in tuned to performance psychology and human psychology and what it is to be recalibrated and the physical, mental, emotional journey that someone has to go through in order to come out the other side, a different [00:32:00] person.

I went into my Joshua Tree version, a completely different, heavier version, and I am now this version delivering to you what I've picked up along the way. Hopefully that's given someone some. Level of insight and maybe it is causing you to think about your journey and maybe want to reach out for support from someone who's actually been there before.

Who gets it, who's done it, who uses science data, seven dimensional keys, Joshua Tree, grunge music, all kinds of different elements to really tap into, someone's personality, even my own personality, and find ways to recalibrate or heal and move forward in a way that is, qualitatively, Effective and If this has spoken to you, if you think someone will enjoy this conversation, please forward this and hopefully we can have a bigger conversation about how Precision Cycle [00:33:00] can help you understand your journey, help you recalibrate it in a way that celebrates your experience, but also orients you towards success and greatness.

Thank you very much for joining me this week. It's been great to deliver content both on erectile dysfunction and the function of the father. Next week we will be back. discussing some new ways in which clinical psychology modalities may be able to bridge the gap between the fragmented parts of ourselves that occur because of PTSD and our abuse experience.

please join us for that next week. thank you very much for a great week. We really appreciate all of your support downloading this podcast. Viewing us on Precision Cycle tv on YouTube, you can reach us at. Elevate epo.com. You can reach me at enrique@elevateepo.com if you're ready to begin your precision cycle today.

You can also reach us at Precision Cycle on [00:34:00] Instagram. Elevate EPO on Instagram and Facebook. Elevate EPO on Twitter Precision Cycle on YouTube and TikTok. Once again, thank you very much. It has been a great week. We will be back next week. We hope that you have a very great, beautiful, productive weekend and we will be back on Monday.

Thank you and take care.