Staying Present When Your Mind Wants Escape

Your brain can turn anything into a fix, even “good” things. Nolan joins us for an unusually honest talk about addiction recovery, presence, and the subtle ways we keep running, from substances to food to nonstop spiritual content. He shares how he realized he was getting high on information, and why the real work is practicing awareness when life feels boring, painful, or uncertain. 

We get specific about kratom addiction, including why extracts can be so risky, how secrecy keeps the cycle alive, and how cross addiction shows up as sugar, wheat, caffeine, and constant dopamine chasing. Nolan also breaks down a recovery idea that hits hard: relapse often starts long before the use, when we drift from the habits that keep us centered. We connect AA concepts like spiritual fitness and daily reprieve with mindfulness meditation, breathwork, and the gritty practice of sitting with discomfort until it passes. 

The conversation widens into Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, ego, overthinking, and what it means to live in the now instead of projecting salvation into the future. We also talk music as a healthier altered state, the pull of technology and AI anxiety, and why nature might be the last place we remember what we are. If you care about sobriety, mental health, spirituality, and real-life tools for staying present, you’ll hear both depth and practicality here. 

If this resonates, subscribe to Supernaut, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations. What part of your life are you ready to stop averting from today?

0:00 Welcome And Warriors Against Addiction

3:10 Spiritual Content As A Crutch

13:57 Kratom, Dopamine, And Substitution

24:10 Fear, Self Worth, And Power

29:15 AI, Spiritual Warfare, Nature Reset

33:05 Reality As Projection And Frequency

42:31 Music, Identity, And Creative Grounding

48:10 Father Wounds, AA, Letting Go

54:40 A New Earth And Training Attention

1:02:15 How Friends Describe Nolan

1:06:29 Homeschooling And Raising Present Kids

1:09:44 Heart Open, Prayer, Service, Closing

Transcript

Welcome And Warriors Against Addiction

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Supernaut, where we explore the inner and outer dimensions of the self. Today our guest is Nolan Gilbertson. Nolan is a huge reason why I am the way that I am. Our conversations about spirituality seem to never end back in our early 20s. He's a musician, he struggled with addictions, and he will always be someone I look up to for insight and inspiration. So I asked you to pick a song for us to listen to before we started. What song did you pick?

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I picked a song called Warriors by a band. I was at Hazeldon for eight weeks. And yeah, when you leave, you know, you get you circle up, all your guys, um, they kind of pass the rock, go around the circle and share something about you, something they connected with you on during the time, and then you you play a song and it's kind of a cool, it's a cool ceremony.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Yeah, so does it bring you back to that time?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

It does, yeah. And just the idea of being a warrior against against addiction, essentially. Um, it is a battle. It really is a battle. I try not to create it in a way where I'm, you know, battling some adversarial version of myself. I understand I want to be, you know, be at be whole and be at peace with myself, but yeah, addiction really is a beast. It really is.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Yeah, and it's all around us.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yeah, absolutely. So so many forms and variations and um all affecting the same reward pathway as we know, though. Like we're very actually simple creatures, and yeah, it's it's easy for for the human psyche to get caught on uh an easy escape.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

You know.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Even overthinking is an addiction that I'd say pretty much everybody has at some point in their life. Um, so that brings me to um, like I said, back in our early 20s, we really got into spirituality and we would talk all night about mostly this book, A New Earth by Eckhart Tole. I think we started with like law of attraction stuff and all the universe stuff, like way before it was mainstream, you know, way before everybody was saying, Oh, the universe, blah, blah, blah. So um, I want to get into this book towards the end of our conversation, but for now, I just wanna talk about you. So um, you texted me something last year um that I really needed to hear. You said, I have listened to so many podcasts over the years, I love them, but also use them as a crutch. I listen to spiritual content as opposed to practicing presence and celebrating life every moment. There's always a balance, of course. And it's just like, yes, like I can get so addicted. I just went three weeks without listening to a podcast because it's like the information is just wrapped in another box, but it's the same thing, and always the stuff that I listen to is just always about going back to presence. So um, yeah, thank you for saying that to me a year ago.

Spiritual Content As A Crutch

SPEAKER_02 3:10

That really helped. How are you feeling with that balance right now?

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Well, it's a good question. I uh the more I learn, the less I feel I know. You know, it's it's kind of cliche, kind of sounds cliche, but yeah, I have spent just thousands upon thousands of hours listening to podcasts and reading books and just yeah, literally getting high off the information, right? It really is like this spiritual buzz, absolutely is an addiction of just that next book, that next podcast.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

And it's a distraction.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

It's a huge distraction. I mean, like you said, the message is uh usually the same, repackaged over and over. And we need those repackaging repackagings, you know, because everyone learns differently, everyone hears differently. We all need to be teachers for one another. But yeah, where I've struggled in life is really just the application of these things. I'm so not a doer, I'm a thinker. Yeah, I just want to sit and think about shit, you know, and just intellectualize and analyze everything. And that's what that's what the biggest thing in recovery that they teach you, you know, in AA circles, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous is the mind is broken. Our mind is essentially broken, especially by the time that we're buried in addiction and show up to a rehab facility. Um, but we're just obsessed with the idea that we can fix our broken mind with our broken mind. And yeah, everything's on fire and everything you touch turns to fire, you know. Um, and just really understanding that you just have to back off, you have to find quiet and calm. Um, but again, it's a practice. And then even the mind will just even obsess about my mind will obsess about even talking about presence, right? It reminds me of a cartoon drawing that I had seen, like a you know, a comic at one point. There was two doors, and there was the the first door said the doorway to heaven, and the second door said conversation about the path to heaven, and had all the all the cartoons lined up in the conversation line. Um, which is just interesting.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

That is, you know what I mean. It's a good visual.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

It's so much fun to think and to talk about, but when it comes to actually doing it, um, it's a the discontention of the ego. I mean, it does not want the quiet.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

And not that it's not a good thing, because I can't tell you how many times I've called Katie Joe or other friends and been like, I just heard this for the 45th time, but it hit me differently, you know? So it's not that the repetitiveness, like you said, it's not that it's bad and that it's not needed, but there needs to be that balance. And it's like I'm exactly the same. I'm such a thinker instead of like doing. And the doing is really hard because it's just sitting there with no thoughts and just trying to shut it off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

I know, totally. Yeah, and everything gets easier with practice. I mean, there's but definitely been times where I've been feeling quite aligned with myself and I'm meditating regularly, um, eating well, exercising, all those things, but it's such a delicate balance for me. Um, it feels like I said there's always another battle, something that I'm working on with addiction. Um, cross addiction is a huge issue for me. One of the big, big reasons I continue to go in this circle is just the substitution. You know, I'll remove one drug and replace it with food. Um, food's been a huge issue for me. My physiology is super sensitive. And honestly, wheat and sugar, I mean, they're drugs to my body, they're drugs to my brain. When I got out of rehab for the second time, what, 14 years ago, just before 2014, um went to uh Delwood up in Cambridge for Kratom addiction. I got out, I was still using nicotine when I got out, but I eventually quit the nicotine as well, just trying to be free of everything. And uh, as soon as I pulled that nicotine out, I realized I started to replace it with food. But it took me a while to figure that out, just eating, eating crap, crap. And I finally said out loud one day, like, what am I doing? Like, I never used to eat like this, you know. And uh Kelsey pointed out, she said, Well, yeah, you're not drinking anymore, you're not using drugs, you're not using nicotine or anything. And I was like, Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Your brain wants that dopamine 100%.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Like, oh, this is the substitution, you know. And it took me a while to see that. But yeah, it's super annoying. It really is, just trying to find that peace um within myself. But yeah, so I had a long stretch of sobriety at that point in time for like six, seven years, uh, but battled with food and caffeine the entire time. Um and eventually, you know, just with the challenges with my food, eventually it's just like, I'm just gonna go back to drugs. I just need relief from this battle and the challenge with food that yeah, I started, you know, relapsing on an annual basis essentially. I was either clean, eating garbage, struggling with food, or I'd be on drugs. And when I'm on drugs, I don't need food. So yeah, that's that's honestly been the battle for quite a while. It's been about 25 years now. Um there's been a ton of beauty and amazing time in my life as well. But uh still trying to find that peace. You know. But again, I know that's a daily practice. It's about being present, it's about practicing appreciation and satisfaction and gratitude. Um it's so easy to project our happiness to a to a future point. Somehow the future has has my salvation. That's the biggest thing I've really learned from Eckertoly, you know.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Yeah. Oh, I think I had something in here about the future. Yeah. The only existence the future actually has is as a thought form in your mind. So when you look to the future for salvation, you are unconsciously looking to your own mind for salvation. You're trapped in form, and that is ego. Yeah. Yeah, if you're in the future or the past, like that's you're trapped. Yeah. That's all there is to it.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

I know, and just visualizing and things like that too, and imagining the the life that I, you know, desire or things that I want to experience, it's still like projecting it's happening in the future, you know, in my mind. Whereas if everything was exactly as I wanted it to be, how would I feel right now? I would just be at peace. I would just be content, I would just be enjoy be enjoying this moment, you know. And uh that's why that's the practice, you know, just being here now, truly being here now. And and really, really, really realizing that now is really all that exists. There's only this point in time. Everything else is a fabrication of the imagination, and it literally does not exist. Um, that really helps with like regret, you know, regret not doing this sooner, that sooner, getting myself straightened out sooner. And but there's only right now. All that matters is my point of power, which is right now, and what I'm offering vibrationally too.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Yeah, imagine if you could wake up every single day and everything from yesterday and the past was deleted, and you were just fresh. The only reason I think we evolved to have a memory was because we needed to know where to find food, where to find shelter. Like you need a memory to survive, but we have gone crazy with it and we use our memory to uh keep us in the past and hold us back and like ruminate over stupid stuff that somebody said. But really, if we wanted to, we could delete everything and just focus on now.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Totally. Yeah, I really am a firm believer. Like, we literally are new every second. We're brand new.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

And you know, that's why we call it baggage, right? The shit that we carry around with us. It's optional. But it's it's so hard to let go, you know. The the concepts that we we build our life on and how we define ourselves, um they're sticky, you know. It really wants to stick around. You tell one story long enough, and of course, um the external circumstances are gonna reflect that and and prove itself to you over and over, whatever the beliefs are. But then as as you know, as I start to see evidence of how I believe, it's easy to just continually become re-hypnotized by the reality. You know, reminds me, you know, when I was 13, 14 years old, I uh had on uh came across the subject of lucid dreaming. And if you don't know what a lucid dream is, it's where you're you're dreaming and you become aware in the dream that it's a dream. My idea was, you know, I was 13, 14 years old, I was really into guitar. The idea was is I was gonna sleep at night, lucid dream on purpose, write music in my dreams, and then wake up and transfer it to reality, which is just hilarious. But I was obsessed with dreams at the time. Um, this may sound like a precursor to drug use, which so happened to be. Um yeah, I knew dreams were important, not necessarily just in their contents, but in their their concept, the very concept of dreams that we we lay down and we are a dream self. And everything in that reality that we experience is composed of our conscious energy. I believe it's it's the same thing in waking life. Waking life is much more dense, but that consciousness, I'm still the same consciousness, whether it's in waking life or in dream world, or whether it's your consciousness or your awareness, it's all the same awareness, it's all the same God, the same point. Um but yeah, it's just so much the same as the idea of waking up in life, waking up to who we are, waking up to our essence and and our true spirituality. I mean what I am as as an infinite being on the planet. But again, it's so easy, like in the dream. Usually when someone becomes lucid in a dream, they wake up because they don't have the conscious calmness to maintain the state. Um, or the dream is so real, like I said, you forget and you fall back asleep. And that's just how my day-to-day is. I mean, it's constantly trying to stay awake and increase my level of consciousness and awareness so that I can overcome the programs, um the automated programs that I live by that I learned that I created on along the way growing up. Um, but those programs are strong, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Very strong.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Yeah.

Kratom, Dopamine, And Substitution

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Can you tell me about Kratom? I don't know much about it.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yeah, so Kratom is essentially a leaf. It's it's a plant, a tree, the Kratom tree. Um, grows in Southeast Asia. So it's it's a leaf, it's been around forever. They used to use it medicinally way back in the day, of course. But it's a leaf that's either ground up. I mean, they do all kinds of things with it now, but it's ground up and consumed as a powder. You can make teas out of it, um, edibles, all that kind of stuff. Um, and of course, they have like the high potency extract shots as well. Where they they suck out all the metragenine is what the the chemicals chemical is called, and you know, put that into a super high potency shot, which is um, they call it gas station heroin, essentially. You know, it's a very strong opiate-like drug. Technically, it's in its own class. I believe it's actually related to coffee. Um, but yeah, it's basically a mix between coffee and um heroin.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

So it's like an upper and a downer.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yeah, it has like stimulating and um sedative effects, depending on the dose, how much you take, and what strains you take, and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

But what was your first experience with it?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

So this was yeah, 14-ish years ago. Um, I was working at a machine shop down in Burnsville. Uh we had just had our daughter London. And um, the manager of the machine shop, or sorry, not machine shop, detail shop had back issues. Um, but he hated the opiates and the normal prescriptions that he used for his back pain. So he had ended up finding this Kratom stuff, and he would use that, which is actually it's a very effective painkiller. I mean, it could serve purposes, certainly not in my hands, but um, so he started used that to help with the pain, and he told me about it, and I ended up trying it. And uh it was all downhill from there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Did you love it instantly?

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Yeah, I mean, just instantly, and it reminded me of like Percocet or Vicodin. It's very similar to those things. So to me, it brought me back to uh my wisdom tooth surgery when I got my wisdom teeth taken out. I'll never forget the effect of that Percocet, you know, that I had that day. So yeah, it brought me right back to that. And uh as soon as I found out, you know, it's illegal, it's accessible at stores, um, I started using in the closet quietly. And yeah, that went on for gosh, what was it, maybe six months. All in all, it went on for a year and a half before I ended up sending myself to rehab.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

But when did you realize that was a problem?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

I mean, I knew it was a problem early on, right? Just like my relationship with marijuana as a kid. You know, I the second I started smoking, I mean, that stuff just took me out. My physiology is super super sensitive. Like marijuana's a hard drug for me, period, just like Kratom is. Um But yeah, I was coming up on a year of use basically behind Kelsey's back. I was still drinking a lot at the time, so I, you know, alcohol, alcohol kind of covered um the Kratom addiction. Um but yeah, I finally came out to her after a year. I told her I needed help. I wanted to admit it so I could get it out in the air and ideally move on and quit and move forward, but found out I was absolutely not able to quit on my own. Um this went on for another six months, and I finally ended up quitting my job so I could apply for Rule 25 state rehab, state funded rehab, and uh finally went back for the second time. Um, and that's when I got out and wasn't I ended up being clean for yeah, the six, seven years.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Did something trigger you to go back after the six, seven years?

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yeah, it really was the relationship with food. Like I said, the food and the caffeine and just the mental obsession, just shifting to something, to something else, you know.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Cause you've really gotten into working out too where like it seems like that can be an obsession.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah, totally. And that was one of the issues when I first got clean is that we really hit nutrition hard and we really hit the fitness hard. Um, so yeah, I don't want to wanted to be this super fit, you know, awesome person that can do amazing things with my body, but at the same time, I can't stop eating donuts, you know. So it's just this massive war going on inside and between yeah, the person I'm trying to become, the I'm trying to become, the person that I desire to be, um, with the addictions and the craving and the the constant needing to avert myself, you know.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

Um, what's the sneakiest thing about it? Like what made it hard to see it so clearly? Like, like I told you yesterday, I was gonna ask, is it different recovering from something that society doesn't fully recognize as a problem?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Because it's legal and you can find it at all the gas stations. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

It was years and years ago before anybody knew what it was. You know, my question, like, you know, is this a real addiction? Is this a real drug? Like, what's going on here? And um, but it most certainly is. And uh, you know, when I was at Hazelden, now there was a handful of people in there for Kratom, which is, you know, yeah, it's a real thing, it's a problem, especially this new stuff they call 7-0, stands for 7-hydroxyometragenine, which is the second alkaloid present in Kratom. It's at a much, much lower rate. Um, but it's much, much more potent. This 7 7-0-7 hydroxy. Um, so of course they figured out a way to extract that and to synthesize that. So now you can get these tabs that it's basically like morphine. Um, I have not not gotten much into that. I've had a big enough issues with the extracts that I've really avoided it. But yeah, it's just bad news. It really is.

SPEAKER_04 19:59

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

So, in your hardest moments with it, does it feel helpless or can you always see a light? Can you always see that there's a way out and that you're going to be okay?

SPEAKER_00 20:11

No, I mean, for the most part, it feels that way, but before Hazelden last year, I mean, it was bleak. It was super bleak. Um I actually went back to a different rehab facility. I ended up leaving, I ended up using while I was in that facility. It's just a crazy story. From mid-24 to mid-25, that year, I spent four and a half months in three detox centers and three rehab facilities. Um in and out and back and forth. I mean, it was like the most brutal experience of my life. And uh before going into Hazelinia, I mean, I was just stick in bones and thin, and the the light was out, you know. Um yeah, it's scary.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

It's not uh Yeah, and I don't even like really want to ask because again, it's just like intellectualizing, trying to figure it out, but like I do want to try and know, or you you know, like in those triggering moments when you've been clean for a couple days or a couple weeks or a couple months, and you find yourself driving to the gas station and get it. Like, I mean, I'm the same way with vapes. I I get it. I buy a couple a month and then throw them away after a couple days, and um then I find myself going again later. And I don't even know what triggers me. Like, yeah, I think it's just wanting dopamine and not being able to think clear enough to figure out how to get it in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Right. That's the thing, is I have to stay centered. I have to ideally, like, I'd be totally drug free, right? No caffeine, no nicotine, and need a very low carb, ideally ketogenic diet. Um, and really working on the the presence and just staying present and centered. But it's so easy to stray from that center. And it I don't have to get Too far away for it to really start to affect my decision making. In AA, they really talk about, you know, we're never cured of this addiction. It's never solved. What we have is a daily reprieve from the madness, depending on our spiritual fitness, essentially. The less spiritually fit that I become, the less power I have to make decisions. When I get low enough, I do not have the ability to make decisions for my well-being. And that's when the relapses happen. You know, the actual use comes way before or comes way after the relapse, as they say. You know, it's an energetic shift far before it's a physical action. Um and so it's not like you don't have forewarning, but again, it can also be very hard to pull yourself out. Um, so yeah, the challenge of really just staying as centered and aware as possible. And that's why, you know, I'm I I just got a new sponsor in AA. I've been in and out of AAA for quite a while. Um a couple of the places that I went to rehab, or the one place that I went to rehab is really AA focused. Alcoholics Anonymous is an incredible program. It really is. And I say AA, AA and NA, it's kind of it doesn't matter what kind of drug you're on, you can go to AA. Um, of course, it started with alcohol, it's just another addiction, as we know. Um But yeah, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is just really incredibly written by the first 100 alcoholics. It's just it in the most prophetic fashion, like it describes addicts and alcoholics so well, so unbelievably well. Um, and how we're really just insecure and afraid. Um, and that's ultimately why we run, why I run from my life using drugs and alcohol. They say, you know, drugs and alcohol aren't my problem, they're the solution to my problems. And of course they they work for a while, they work for a little bit, they numb you for a while, but then you know the tolerance takes over and the hell begins.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Do you know what you're afraid of and what you're running from?

SPEAKER_00 24:09

You know, I

Fear, Self Worth, And Power

SPEAKER_00 24:10

it was I learned a lot through the past three years. Um, I was in some therapy and stuff as well, and just going through rehab several times. It's yeah, like what am I afraid of? What am I really afraid of? Um, in AAA they talk about how our biggest thing is that we're afraid that we won't get what we want in life, or that if we do, it'll be taken away. And I just have this very deep-seated vibrational core belief, or have had it, that I'm not a worthwhile person, you know, I'm not valuable. Um and that I'm not worth it. And so, you know, no matter what I've done or what I would do to try and overcome that, um yeah, the self-sabotage is real, it's just and just endless. So, yeah, what am I afraid of? And it I think I was just so afraid to to not get what I want, to not serve the world the way that I want to serve the world.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Um I think you're scared of your own power. I think we all are.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

I could not agree more. There, yeah, there's that quote that says we're not afraid of our inadequacy, inadequacy, like what we fear deeply is our greatest power. Yeah, I butchered it, but I know I have an immense force inside of me, a god force inside of me that's been calling me for a long time, and I know I'm capable of a tremendous amount. So yeah, totally afraid of that stream of life. Like it's just this raging river that is just raging so hard and so fast. Um and yeah, it's been my issue to assimilate myself to a high enough vibration to jump in. Um, one step forward, two steps back, self-sabotage, afraid of success and failure both at the same time, you know, living in this very narrow bandwidth of uh very painful mediocrity.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Yeah, thinking can be such a curse. Just overthinking all of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Yeah, it really is an addiction. Like Eckhartly talks about, like nothing is worse than thinking and overthinking. Um the ego is just so obsessed with plotting and planning because that's what it does to try and feel okay. To try and have some semblance of control in life. It's like it's just gotta plot and a plan and to think and to intellectualize and to analyze. And like I said, when my hands are on fire, everything I touch turns to ash. And as they say, in Alcoholics Anonymous, too, like our brain as addicts, as people in recovery, is obsessed with the idea that it can figure it out. That it can either figure out how to get over everything or it can figure out how to use successfully or how to control use. That's part of the quote unquote the disease, the condition is is its obsession with uh thinking it's got it. It doesn't got it.

SPEAKER_02 27:11

You told me once if you have a plan B, plan A won't work. Do you still believe that?

SPEAKER_00 27:18

I remember saying that back in the day, right? I mean, I totally get it. You want to ultimately have total faith in whatever your plan is. Um but for myself, I didn't realize how big a plan could be, you know, back when I was younger. I thought one plan was just one concise focus, just one obsession, just hitting that, and it's just all or nothing, and it's that 100%, or it's nothing. Life is so big, there's so much, there's so much time and so much energy and so much opportunity to be so much. Um there's no reason plan A and plant B can't coincide. You know? And then that goes to our obsessive mind thinking how how it's gonna happen, right? It's so obsessed or try obsessed with trying to figure out how it's gonna happen. And it's so debilit debilitating. I mean, it just removes all the magic.

unknown 28:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

It can't, yeah, it can't leave space for magic, it doesn't understand magic, it is not of magic. Um, and we have to allow the portion of ourselves that is to guide us.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

We have a secret podcast called Veda's Vault that will probably never be released, but remember we were talking about that, like the the magic disappears when you overplan. There's no room for it. Where's it supposed to, where's it supposed to come from? Right. Oh, I'm working on that super hard right now. Um, another thing that you said is that in this lifetime, nothing will surprise us. I remember you saying that, like, and now with AI and all the things that are happening, like that couldn't be more true. Do you remember saying that? You're like, Yeah, in this generation of the people alive right now that aren't gonna die for a while. Like, just anything can happen. Anything. Yeah, a time traveler, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Yeah, I mean, yeah, maybe I'm a little more surprised now, you know. I the world's just insane right now. I've been on Facebook a little bit lately, which

AI, Spiritual Warfare, Nature Reset

SPEAKER_00 29:15

is a terrible idea. But just the amount of crap that they're throwing at us to try to get to stick, just the amount of just the fear-mongering. You know, you got the government, which is just a mess. You know, we're still recovering from COVID. Um, you got aliens going on now, there's wars all over the place. Um, like we're in the midst of World War III right now, and it's spiritual warfare. It's for the very soul of humanity. I don't care what anyone thinks about that. Like, we're at a crossroads right now that is just unprecedented. You know, we're basically selling ourselves to big tech. I mean, there's gonna be an enormous division in humanity right now about those who want to remain real humans and those that don't.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

That's why I'm kind of just wanting to build some type of retreat center. I don't know at what scale yet, but in the woods, because that is the one thing that AI isn't gonna be able to take.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

And people are going to want that more and more. Um, just to get out in nature and unplug no phones for a couple days. I don't like people are gonna need that. And I think more and more people are realizing that.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yeah. I mean, the world is waking up. It really is. Consciousness is rising, the earth itself is is raising its vibration. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

It was right, like a new earth. Right. Yeah, is happening.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Um, and we can we can go with it or we can stay behind. I mean, there's really no right or wrong. You know, we're all here on our own soul's journey.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Is that the actual rapture? Was the rapture in the Bible just a metaphor for like you can go to the light or you can go to the dark?

SPEAKER_00 30:57

100%. I mean, that in my in my view, yes. Um, as those that continue to raise their elevation continue that and unite and come together, they literally they're in a different world, right? Like Bashar says, we never change the world. We change the version of the earth we're on. There are so many infinite uses and earths and every situation that already exists, right? Everything is already created in the universe. We don't actually create anything.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

And we're not actually form, like we're just and our thoughts are just non-forms on a higher vibration. Or like, I don't know how to say it, but that's the thing, too.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

I mean, science and what quantum mechanics and quantum physics have come out with now, like all the stuff that seems woo-woo is is dead obvious at this point in time.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Even Andrew Huberman, the neuroscientist, like top podcaster in the world, said like all the woo-woo stuff will be proven in the next five years. We just don't have anything to scale it or measure it yet.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Yeah, I like Bouchard too. And did you watch him on um, you know, Amy F Farafowler from Big Bang Theory? She has her own podcast.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Okay, I don't think I've seen that.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

Um, so she's like a neuroscientist, and her husband is like a Reiki energy guy. So it's like they have guests on that, you know, are in both those worlds. Yeah. And Bouchard went on and it was as, but not as Bichard as his human form.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Sure. Daryl Inca.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

And that was really a good episode. Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

He's amazing. I I mean, if most people were to go listen to him right now, they would lose their mind and freak out. I mean, it's some bizarre shit. But the words that he says and the way he talks about physics and and vibration and reality.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

He's transmuting, he's not just making this shit up.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

No. I mean, the speed at which he responds and the accuracy of his answers, yeah. I mean, it's just insane. And he's been he's been doing it for 40 years. He's literally not missed a word. Yeah, no misstep, nothing. He's never contradicted himself. It's it's just amazing. But yeah, just the ideas from him, really, really realizing that

Reality As Projection And Frequency

SPEAKER_00 33:05

reality for me, life for me is a projection. My soul is projecting this experience. And we're really all in our own room. You're in your own room, projecting your own spirit experience. I really live on my own earth. The version of you that I get, I've agreed to experience the version of you that I create. Just like in a dream. If we're in a dream right now, you're composed of my conscious energy. She's composed of my conscious energy. Reality is the same way, it's the same thing. It doesn't mean you don't exist, but again, we've agreed that we're going to experience our own individual versions of one another. And just really waking up in the morning and realizing that this is a field. It's all just a field. One of Bashar's biggest say quotes is circumstances don't matter. Only state of being matters. It literally, it does not matter what what's happening. We need to learn, I need to learn to detach and understand that this is a field. I'm not me in this reality, I'm actually the entire reality itself. Just like in a dream, I am the entire dream. I'm the dreamscape and I'm the people and I'm myself. You're the universe. Exactly. And like Eckert says, like, we are the universe disguised as human beings.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

And I think an easy way for people to understand it is let's say you and your friend are standing there and somebody walks by and they say something. One person can say, Oh my gosh, they said that so rude, and the other person can say, I didn't think that was rude at all.

SPEAKER_05 34:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

It's because whatever's going on in your life and your mind and how you've agreed to experience other people is what you're gonna see.

SPEAKER_05 34:42

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Everybody's gonna see their parents different, like siblings are gonna see their parents differently, everybody's gonna see their kids differently. Like it's all about what your frequency is.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Yeah. 100%. Yeah, it's I've really just been trying to get to a point where I can just really see a noticeable shift in my reality. To the point where yeah, where I'm just um immune to external circumstances, ignoring reality. I say, Oh, you can't ignore reality. This isn't reality, this is actually old news, right? What I'm experiencing right now is a culmination of all my past thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. And if I want to project it, I need to project a new frequency into the field for a sustainable amount of time in order to change the field.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

I saw a TikTok that was like, if you can just look at the whole world with amusement instead of like, oh, that pisses me off, that makes me sad, that makes me happy. Like, just look at it all as an amusing game. Yeah. If you can stay in that mind state all the time, like, oh, I need a tattoo amusement on my forehead or something.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Totally. There was a quote I had come up for myself a year or two ago. I just said, live quiet-mindedly in witness of beauty. And it's like, the more we can do that, just be at peace, just be present, just be here now. You know, as as Eckert would say, you could follow the breath or you could focus on bodily sensations or sense perception, you know. Just listening to the birds, just watching the clouds, whatever. Um, but it feels so boring initially. And that's part of why it's it's hard to habitualize being there because we're so addicted to the stimulation of the mind and of external content and the internet and food and everything else. It feels boring to just sit and to be present.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

Well, I've done LSD twice now, and both times, the only thing I can think that it does is take away the thoughts, take away your ego. So everything is just beautiful. Right. And I think that's how we can see the world. Um, but that reminds me, I was gonna ask earlier when we were talking about the Kratum and everything. Have you uh looked into or considered Ibigaine or ayahuasca or psilocybin or anything? Like, have you heard other accounts of people getting rid of their addictions and feeling more full and whole from those experiences?

SPEAKER_00 37:10

I mean, I I've definitely heard a little about a little bit about it. I I had considered psilocybin as an idea, microdosing or something at one point in time. Um and I don't doubt that there could potentially be some benefit there. Uh, because yeah, it really just it uncouples the brain and all these programs. It just breaks them down, which is so difficult to do with the regular conscious mind. Well, we can't, we need to step beyond the mind, but you know, AA would is is against that, you know, not using you wouldn't use another substance to try and help with any other substance.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Are they against are they against um antidepressants?

SPEAKER_00 37:47

No, so it's you know, they leave that up to the doctor, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:51

Um Because when you microdose, you don't you're not supposed to feel anything. If you feel high, you didn't microdose, you macrodosed.

SPEAKER_05 37:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

If you do it correctly, you don't feel anything more than you would feel from an antidepressant, where like, you know, if you're antidepressants for a month, you're like, oh hey, I'm just feeling a little bit happier. That's all that microdosing does. Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Yeah, no, I get that. And I'm not I'm still not totally against it. Um yeah, whatever would break the programs down, you know. Such old things still running in my body and my mind that definitely break through from time to time, but the mental grooves are deep, you know.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Um so one more thing that you had said in high school, I'm bringing up all these things that you've said. Um you were going you were meditating on a Jimi Hendrix quote for a while. I think it was like weeks. Do you remember which quote it was?

unknown 38:52

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

No.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

unknown 38:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

You don't remember, but you're like that tracks. That was me, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Like no, totally.

SPEAKER_02 39:04

Yeah. I remember after a couple weeks, you like got some crazy insight. Because like I remember when you said it, I was like, well, it just means knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. But I understood that if you you don't contemplate it on it for a really long time, it could like have layers and layers of meaning.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

Sure. Yeah, I mean, it goes back to the knowledge thing, like, I don't need more knowledge, I do not need any more knowledge. I have learned enough to find success in my life forever, over and over and over. Is it's the application. And not only you know, not only that, I used to think like I'm gonna learn as much as I can, and I need to memorize all this information. I need to know it all so that I can recite it. Yeah, so that I can answer any question that's that's ever asked, and I have to remember all this stuff. But that's when I realized, you know, during the higher times of my life, I don't need to remember it. All I need to do is focus more on intensely being present, and I will be tuned into whatever I need at that time.

SPEAKER_02 40:05

And then you just transmute. That's what Bashard is doing. That's what my spiritual coach does. Yeah.

unknown 40:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

When you're truly tapped in, tuned in, you don't need memory. It's not about memory.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Because our memories deceive us, and our memories should just be here for survival.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Yeah. Well, they talk about how, like, yeah, we alter them by like 50% every time we view them, and then we put them back in the bank and then take them out again and reshape them. But yeah, like we really we don't need the past, we don't need the future, sure, for basic plans, you know, simple things, of course, using the mind and having a schedule. But yeah, the more intensely present that we can be now, um the more opens up to us. And that's been my biggest thing, right? Is being present enough and calm enough where I want to hear communication from my soul. I want to know the path. You know, and like as Abraham Hicks says, we are just getting bombarded by the grace and the path and the knowledge that we need and the synchronicities. They're all here. Constantly, our soul is screaming at us, doing everything it can in its power to lead us and guide us, the higher self on the mountaintop, you know. Um, and and like Abraham Hicks said, like you have to be pretty resistant to miss most of this crap. And the truth is that most of us are pretty resistant, you know. Um, to the point where one tiny little magic, magical thing unfolds and we're just flabbergasted by the synchronicity of the universe. When the potential is just insane beyond our level of comprehension and imagination, the amount of flow and manifestation that we can experience in our lives. You know. And that's that's what threw me off too, when The Secret came out when we were in our early 20s and we read that, and I knew there was so much truth to it. Um But yeah, manifestation, as Eckert talks about, really should come second. Presence really needs to come first.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

When you're in the presence and that's your main vibration, the manifesting comes naturally, but you don't really want things or desire material things like you thought that you would. So that's why it should come second. If it's coming first, and then you're attached to these material things, which it's all about detaching, it's all about not needing the things around you and knowing that the present moment is literally all that you need. It's all right there.

Music, Identity, And Creative Grounding

SPEAKER_02 42:31

So I want to talk about music quick. Um, speaking in Jimi Hendrix, um music has to be one of the best ways to feel God, in my opinion, and take you out of your body in a way that's like impossible to describe, like almost like an altered state. Maybe that's why you got into music so early. It's always been a big deal to me, but like more and more now, I like my mantra in my head is music is my drug. Like if I'm craving something, just go back, go listen to a song, and it will like literally put me in that altered space that I'm I'm craving.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

Um, where I mean, I think you could probably even get addicted to music in a way that was unhealthy in taking in taking you out of the present um moment. But when did you know that music was going to be such a big part of your life?

SPEAKER_00 43:20

It was pretty early on. You know, I picked up the guitar and learned about tablature, which is an easy way to basically learn your favorite songs on guitar without knowing how to read music. Um I took it up quick, I just started playing just a crazy amount. And yeah, it had, you know, had become pretty important very early in life, um, or early in my guitar playing career. And then but then it also just r really became my identity. Um, which is something that really led me to a lot of challenges later on in life.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

I never thought about that.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Yeah. You know, my dad the biggest way he shows love and shows Love and support for me in my life was supporting my music, which was huge. You know, he'd buy me guitars and he always encouraged me to pursue my music career. He's a huge music fan, he knew I had something special, he just loved it, and um it was amazing, you know what I mean? It was great, and I wanted to do that. I want to play music, that's what I'm here to do, so on and so forth. This is what I want to do. So really building my identity around that early on, um, it just set me up for a lot of challenges later. You know, as I was unable to fully commit to music or on and off with it and back and forth, starting to realize that I wasn't gonna be able to manifest this blueprint I had of myself, at least in the time that I thought. You know, I was supposed to have seen the world by the time I was 25 with sports cars at home, of course. And yeah, just obsessed with the idea that I'm supposed to be this musician, the successful musician, and that's why I'm here and who I am, and life's not gonna be right if if that's not what I'm doing at a high level. Um battled that for a really long time.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Are you still creating music?

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Yeah, absolutely. Still play guitar. Um actually just started taking vocal coaching a few months ago. I'll always play guitar. I'm a musician, I'm I'm a guitarist in my soul. I always will be. Uh what capacity I do that. We'll see. You know, I'd love to get out and play again at some point. It's really fun playing with my girls now. They're 10 and 14, they've been in voice and piano for two and a half years now. Both just super musical. And it's amazing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Is it still hard to sit down and take the time for it?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

It can be. Um, it's hard to really get into new stuff. You know, I get stuck playing these old riffs and working on my songs, but I really would like to learn, you know, study music, learn how to read music and actually um educate myself more. I've always been self-taught.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

Should I have another book I have to give you?

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

But uh about getting in that creative mind state. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

Yeah, I'm also training for my personal training certification and my health coaching certifications. Um, studying for those exams right now. That's been delayed as well. It's hard to get back into the study mindset. Um, it's pretty inst intense stuff too with human anatomy and um yeah, it's a lot. It's tough to go work all day and then come home and like grind the books for two hours, you know.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

But we'll get there.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

And is cooking a creative outlet for you?

SPEAKER_00 46:39

I wouldn't say it's a creative outlet. Um, we do love to cook. Um, you know, I cooked for eight years in kitchens around the Twin Cities. I love the the action of cooking. It's more of like the physical aspect than the creative cooking.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

Well, probably it gets you out of your head a little bit, makes you have a few less thoughts at least.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Yeah, yeah. Really focused, you know, working with the knives and stuff and the cutting technique and all that. Um, my favorite place where I was a cook, I was the the saute guy at UNW, University of Northwestern in Roseville for four years. And so I had a big saute line with this big six-burner stove and a stack of pans, and we'd do all sorts of different stir fries, and I just absolutely dominated that line. This my line was the best line. It was the favorite. The kids would line up down the hall out the cafeteria for for you know Nolan's food and just slaying the saute pans. It was fun, it was a lot of fun, but yeah, now it nowadays mostly cooking the basics, lots of grilling, lots of uh um blackstone outside, smash burgers, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, cooking though, it's a dying thing, you know, trying to eat real food these uh these days. It's just crazy, the the whole food scene.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

Me and Mickey want to start a farm to table.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Real bad. I mean, we've been dreaming for 20 years, you know, to do something together.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

And things are lining up for both of us in life where it might be a good time to partner up. So yeah, we'll see. That's maybe maybe we'll need you to help us

Father Wounds, AA, Letting Go

SPEAKER_02 48:10

with some stuff.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

Let me know.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Um, speaking of your dad, he um was my first therapist psychologist. I want to ask what it was like having a therapist as a father. But first I want to say that I still remember something he told me when I was in high school too. I think I started seeing him when I was 16 or 17. But the thing that like I still probably think about weekly is he said, you know, when you're about to pass a car and your instincts, your body, you can feel it in your body that you shouldn't, even though it looks it looks safe, but your body tells you not to. He was like, you have to listen to those instincts or they'll stop. Like your body will stop giving you the cues if you don't listen to them. So I try and do everything that my body says. Like, if I'm like, oh, I don't know what I should do tonight, like, where is my body physically, like which direction is it even trying to go? Is it trying to go to town? Is it trying to go upstairs? Is it just is it trying to go down by the river? Like, yeah, that has been super helpful for me in my life. But for you, I know I feel like a lot of children of um helpers in the world haven't always felt the help themselves, or you know, what's that been like for you?

SPEAKER_00 49:27

Yeah, that's it's a good question. It's a huge element to my story. It really is. I uh, you know, my dad, like I said, he supported me as best he could, especially with the music and stuff. My parents did the best they can, the best they could. I love my parents, they love me dearly. Um, they're still together. Um, not just up the river here um from where we're at. Um, so I don't I don't hold anything against my parents. You know, I understand I can't do that. This is my responsibility, this is my life. Um, and so I don't I don't hold anything against them. But uh my dad was certainly a big enabler to my drug use for a long time. Um, we also had a very difficult time connecting early on. When I was younger, excuse me, you know, as a when I was a younger boy approaching manhood, I definitely didn't get the attention that I desired from my dad. Um and I had this conversation with them too, and they agreed, you know, they're both busy, you know, my dad's in school forever, working on his education.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Um and he's helping so many other people that he probably thinks need more help than you because you are the stable family.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

And like I said, everyone's doing the best they can, and we know that. I know that. Um but yeah, by the time I was 13, 14, and and started to get squirrely, you know, by the time I started smoking weed, like I just became bitterly angry. Super dark. Marijuana just took me out so fast. Um, you know, at three pound 3.8 GPA in school, four sports a year. The next year I quit everything. I went to from a 3.8 to a 1.3 GPA. I mean, I just literally died inside. Um, but yeah, it became very dark, very bitter and angry, especially towards my parents. I think that was just, you know, I did not get the attention that I needed, the guidance that I needed, and that was just like the boiling point. Um and then they really tried to connect with me and you know, before I was gone and figured out what was going on, and but it was just too late. It's too angry. Really just pushed them away. I was just it just became super toxic. Um and then yeah, throughout the years, you know, um struggling with with addiction on and off. I've always felt like my dad could have more input, you know, like there's gotta be something more you can tell me to help myself. But it's funny, you read an AA that you read in the books, they tell you like doctors don't know. Yeah, nobody can figure it out. It's addiction, it makes no sense. It makes no sense whatsoever. There's no right things you can say, so on and so forth. It really is a massive program, total total overhaul, a rewriting of all our programming. Um, that's gotta happen. And like a doctor, they can't help you. They can put you on some meds, they can give you a little advice, but um they don't really stand a chance. That's why the community of AA, the the process of the 12 steps where we purge everything that we're holding on to. It's a lesson book in how to let go. Because we are holding on so tight to this identity and to things that that we've wronged and uh the people that we've hurt and uh hurting ourselves and the trauma of all of that. Um yeah, it's a lesson book on how to let go. But uh so yeah, it's been yeah, like I said, a big part of the story. Definitely has had added some challenge all in all. But uh at the end of the day, you know, I uh I'm an adult. It's my it's my responsibility to reprogram myself, you know. Of course, you know, and my dad was, you know, ten times the dad his was, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Um and I'm sure you'll screw up your kids in ways too.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Yeah, well, you know, they've been through a tremendous amount. I mean, I yeah, Kelsey and the girls have been just insane. The amount of support that they've offered me and the level of understanding, they really understand what this is um and why I do the things that I do or why I've done the things that I've done. But yeah, at the same time, it's time to move on, you know. There's so much life, there's there's so much beauty out there, and so much I want to accomplish. But I'm really I I'm really trying to not focus on a vision for myself, an emotional vision, right? Emotional goals. I know I want to speak to people, I want to, I want to work in recovery and you know, personal training at some level. There's a lot of things that I want to do. I just I don't know what that looks like and I don't care.

SPEAKER_02 53:53

Well, I think now is the time for both of us. I keep telling KD Joe because I read this book about Edlerian psychology. It's called The Courage to Be Disliked, and um Adler was the same time as um Freud, but had opposing beliefs about trauma. But um he said that however old you are when you learn the Adlerian psychology is how many years you're gonna need to understand it fully. And we came into all this 20 years ago when we were 20 years old. So I keep telling Keijo, like, is now. Now is when we our brains can fully understand, and it's time to implement everything that we've learned. Because yeah, what I

A New Earth And Training Attention

SPEAKER_02 54:40

wrote down from this book, um, or like the core idea I wanted to say of a new earth is that human suffering stems from over-identification with the ego. So the ego is going to be there no matter what. Your thoughts aren't going to stop, but it's over-identification with it. The mental construct of I, which is built from thoughts, stories, possessions, and roles. Awakening means seeing through the ego and resting in presence. And one of the ways to do that is by not labeling things when you're looking at it, when you're looking at a tree. Um, because once you label something, that means that you only see the surface of it. You don't get to see the unfathomable depth. Um, his quote in the book is even a stone, or more easily, a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the source, to yourself, when you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word or a mental labor on it, a sense of awe and wonder arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you. Because just like you said, we're the universe, every object is the universe. Right. Every single one. And we are, yeah, so we are all one. The only thing that separates us is our senses and how we are perceiving and receiving the world.

SPEAKER_00 56:01

Yeah, totally. Like I said, there have been some good about a time where I was super present and really connected. You know, it's seemingly fleeting. Um, remember that did you ever hear any of the podcasts with James Nestor, the breathing guy? The breath guy? Excuse me. Um, anyways, there was this period where I was just really focusing on presence and I literally focused on nasal breathing and just paying attention to my breath. This is while I was pulling a route at work back at America Pride and literally focusing on that as much as I possibly could all day long. Um, and after like a week, like I had never felt better. I had never felt more at peace and at ease. It's just like I said, when when I begin it, when it when a person starts, it's just so dead and empty. It's like trying to use your imagination to visualize. It's a muscle, you know. And if you don't use it, you try to visualize something and you can't generate it in your body. It just sucks, you know what I mean? It takes it's a practice, it takes time. And that's the biggest thing, too, is I'm such a thinker. I really need to focus on the feeling because it's the body that's the transducer of our reality. You know, we need a coherent signal from our mind and our body, teaching our body to feel, as Joe Dispensate would say, the emotions of our future is how to create that future.

SPEAKER_02 57:23

Um for some reason, something that I got out of A New Earth 20 years ago was that we aren't our body.

SPEAKER_00 57:32

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

And now rereading it and things I've been doing for the last year is like, but it's you we aren't our body, but that's still the only way to presence is through feeling.

SPEAKER_05 57:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

So it's kind of paradoxical and kind of I think it has screwed me up a little bit the last 20 years because if 20 years ago I would have understood about the feeling, how you just have to feel your body vibrating and feel um your instincts and everything. I mean, I've always known that, but figuring it out, um it's just been tough. This week, um, I've meditated an hour straight every day, and that's the first time I've ever done that. And I've only had one really great session where I was actually doing good. But every time when I want to quit, because like, oh, this isn't going well, it's like, yeah, but this is gonna make tomorrow better or next week better, or can you imagine in 30 days or 60 days? But yeah, yeah, exact same thing. It's tough, it's just it doesn't feel good, it feels empty and it feels uncomfortable, the most uncomfortable thing in the world.

SPEAKER_00 58:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:34

Cause no matter what you're addicted to, you're addicted to your thoughts more.

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Um, that was one of the things that hazled in when I got out that really allowed me to get clean in there and quit nicotine. Which uh quitting nicotine in there was just it was brutal. I had been clean for three weeks in there and then I quit nicotine. I mean, I spent the first two days just in tears. I was so broken and my mental health was just wrecked, you know. Um but yeah, really increasing my distress tolerance essentially. They have a really nice meditation at Hazelden in sh um center city, and I'd go there for like three, four times a day for 10-15 minutes a session. And I would just sit with the pain and just the insan just the the in uh the insanity and just witness it, just watch it. Right? I am not my body, but my body's part of me, right? It's a a huge part of my experience of this experience that we have. Because yeah, so much runs through it. I mean, it's certainly not the totality of who I am, but it it is important, you know what I mean? Um, but being able to sit and create a new relationship with fear and with pain and realizing that I can just witness this. You know, I am the the awareness that is experiencing this. I was just super uncertain about what was gonna happen, whether Kelsey and I would work out, whether I would move into sober living or whether I'd move back home. It was also yeah, it's midsummer, it's beautiful outside, and I'm you know, I'm getting to rehab for the third time in a year, and I got two months there, you know what I mean? Um Yeah, it was some brutal weeks, but it was ultimately an amazing two months, and learning how to sit with myself and nothing's really that scary. It's really scary when you're addicted, it's scary when you're withdrawing, you know what I mean? The drug that the drug itself creates the fear. You know. You use for a day, oh it's fine, a couple days, whatever, a week or two. Pretty soon you get a backlog of the emotions that you're not dealing with. You know? Um and it gets heavier and heavier and heavier and scarier and scarier and scarier. You know, it's like the dream, you know, the boogeyman only chases you if you run. But as soon as you start running, it starts running and it starts growing. And uh the faster you run, the faster it gets.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:07

Turn around turn around and run towards it, and then that's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:10

You know, eventually you have to turn it and face it. But again, I feel like there's really nothing truly scary there.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:23

It's just your thoughts thinking it's scary that makes it scary.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

A lot of it too is my you know, my relationship with Kelsey, just never feeling good enough for her and for the relationship. And it's just been a hu super detrimental to myself. Um but it's just not true. We have amazing lives, amazing daughters.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:45

And she clearly loves you so much. She does. There's nobody in this world that could ever look at her, look at you, and not see how much she loves you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

I know, and I need to see that. You know, I always question that I shouldn't love me, this, that, and the other thing. Just typical insecure bullshit. Um, but yeah, it's so apparent. I mean, yeah, we've been together 16, over 16 years now. Our daughters are 10 and 14, and yeah, I don't know where I'd be without them. Wouldn't be good.

How Friends Describe Nolan

SPEAKER_02 1:02:15

Well, I think this is a perfect time to go into the segment where I reveal to you how your people see you. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Because I had you give me a list of people that I could reach out to and I had them describe you in adjectives, and then I put those into themes. Okay. So your first word is gracious, because two people said compassionate, kind, generous, helpful, loyal, polite, calming, and worthy. Second word is deep because you're reflective, introspective, contemplative, spiritual, thoughtful, aware, wise, authentic, honest, sensitive, and alien. Third word is brilliant. Two people said intelligent, two said smart, two said knowledgeable, creative, artistic, musical, and original. Fourth is precise, two said driven, disciplined, perfectionist, obsessive, compulsive, detail-oriented, improving, cautious, groomed, tidy, and handy. Fifth word is fierce, two said courageous and resilient, strong, edgy, capable, and passionate. And your sixth word is playful because two said funny, two said fun, and one said hilarious. And one person wrote a whole thing. They said he admits when he has a problem, he has faced setbacks to his goals and works to overcome them. He wants to help others who may be struggling. He learns from his experiences and examines his life deeply. He continues to pursue growth and self-improvement. He is willing to be honest about his flaws and experiences. He spends significant time reflecting on life, purpose, and the universe. So people see you. And then somebody said, Oh, also, he has the best laugh.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:19

That's pretty amazing, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

And I wrote a synopsis for you. Some people spend a lifetime avoiding themselves, you spend yours going deeper, gracious, brilliant, otherworldly, and somehow still the funniest person in the room. You have never taken the easy way out, and everyone who knows you knows exactly what that cost and what it made you into. So please remember you are not these words, you are not your thoughts, you are the space between the words, the space between the thoughts. You are the one who knows you have thoughts. Observe them, reflect on them. But no, you are not them.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

Amazing. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, I just it really should just be so easy to let life be good. There's nothing I have to do. I just just step back a little bit and witness the beauty, I mean. You get so addicted to the chaos and to the battle. You know you go ten months without it, and if you're not pointed in a new direction, I don't know, you start to just wander back. But uh really ready to let life be amazing. I mean it is amazing. It's too late, that's it's already amazing.

unknown 1:05:42

You know.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:43

Yeah, you got engaged this year.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:45

Yeah, October twenty third, I believe. After sixteen years, yeah, that was uh you know everyone makes fun of it, right? But it's been amazing. Um We just continue to learn to love one another more and more every day. You know, um, yeah, her support for me is just out of this world. It really is her patience, and and she's just super grounding. Um, I am the opposite of grounding, you know what I mean? I'm in space, she's always on the ground trying to pull me back. So I'm always trying to pull her into space too, but it's pretty great.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:20

And I found out today that you guys are homeschooling, Kelsey Homeschools the Girls. What was the um how did you come to that decision, that choice?

Homeschooling And Raising Present Kids

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

Yeah, so it started back at COVID. Um, my oldest was in regular school Spanish immersion for five years. Um, and then my youngest was in, I forget, kindergarten and first or one or two years. COVID hit, they started the online crap, then it was back in school, then it was back online, then it was hybrid, and there was just so much going on in the political scene and just the health scene at that point in time that started considering homeschooling. Kelsey really dove in, um, started learning more, really started considering it, and eventually decided to pull the plug and go for it. Um, that was halfway through a school year, that was a very challenging year. Kelsey's done 99.9% of all of this. Um yeah, really going against the grain in so many ways. Um, the first half year was a challenge. You think you're supposed to wake up and sit your kid at the desk and teach him for eight hours a day. It's just not the reality of it, though. You know, it's three hours a week, four or five days or three, four hours a day, you know what I mean? Yeah. A few hours a day, handful of days a week. Um and she's had so many great resources from homeschool people that have put together curriculums and books and advice, and just they call it like the first year is like unschooling. You really you you start over and deprogram everything that they've done in school. Not the content that they've learned, but just the process of it, um, of all the sitting and the thinking and the writing and just the structure of everything. And realizing first and foremost, like these are kids and they need to go outside and play. You know. And they need to paint and uh yeah, the art and the craft and the fitness, yeah, and and yeah, writing and reading. I mean, these girls are Kelsey's just second to none. You know, she's read a book to these girls every night since they were zero. She's maybe missed five nights where she was too ill. You know what I mean? She would go in Veda's room and read to her, and then she'd go to sleep, and then she'd go in London's room and read to her, and then she'd go to sleep, and then Kelsey would go to sleep, and now they do a read aloud together on the couch every night, but literally every night of their lives. Like their ability to read and to write, um, and music performance and their arts and their crafts, their ability to be present and to just work on activities with intense focus is second to none. You know, they share a phone, um, just for when they're at grandma's or whatever, they can communicate with us or when my daughter has track. But yeah, there's no social media on there, absolutely not. Um they're just amazing kids. It's an amazing setup. It's super smooth now. You know, they connect with all sorts of other homeschool families throughout the state, constantly doing amazing activities and just learning the richness of life, you know. Um and the education is just the after the after effect, you know. They just recently had their their tests out here at the end of school and just both way above. Way above. Which is great. Not that we're comparing, but the world is in desperate need of spiritually connected, highly intelligent young people.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:38

Kids that can think outside of the box and can be more fluid.

Heart Open, Prayer, Service, Closing

SPEAKER_00 1:09:44

And can function without technology. I mean we all know where that's heading.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:52

So when your grandkids are your age, the age that you are right now, um, 40. Uh um what do you do right now that you hope that they do?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:08

Biggest thing would just be focusing on awakening, focusing on the true reality of who we are and what we're here to do. Uh we came here to learn, we came here to be ourselves, you know. Whether or not you believe in reincarnation, there's only one life as us, as this person we are now. And it exists for a reason. Reality, all that is, would be incomplete without me and without you, and without any one of us. And we are here to be the biggest, highest version of that self that we can be. To learn that we are consciousness and that we process consciousness in whatever ways we desire through our thoughts, beliefs, and emotions.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:49

And what do you do right now that you hope that they don't do?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:56

Just don't avert yourself. Stop the aversion to the self. Um, be open. Keep your heart open and stop the aversion. You know, reading a lot of Mickey Singer, as they call him, Michael Singer's books. Um, his new book, Wisdom Untethered, is just amazing. His other books are awesome too, but just really the art and the practice of keeping the heart open in life. There are so many things that happen where we want to close up, we want to tense up. Someone says something, you know, we we don't perform well on something, anything. The number of things that cause us to close our hearts are endless. But just remaining in remaining open and witnessing that. Um no matter what. Because the answers will always come, you know. Part of my recovery too is really like being okay with death. I'm so afraid that when I'm amazing and well and I'm traveling the world, speaking, doing all the things that I want to do, like something else bad will happen, right? I'll get cancer, I'm gonna die. Doesn't matter how amazing I am or how amazing my life gets, I ultimately believe deep down that I will suffer equally as much, if not more. Like that's the core belief that I've been.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:11

I wonder if that's a universal core belief because I have that.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:15

Yeah, it's it's definitely one of the main things with the psyche. You know, I think being in this human form, this quote unquote separated from God is the generator of that pain. You know, and so we do much so much cringing and scratching and kicking, trying to either fill that void or cross it. And you know, the pain of not being closer to God or to my higher self is is what keeps me going backwards, you know what I mean? Like I said, that river's moving fast. I know I so belong in the river. But at the same time, there's you know, five-year-old, five-year-old Nolan with the arm floaties sitting on the shore, just too afraid to jump in, and you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:12

Is there anything else you wanted to talk about today?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:21

Nothing else coming to me at the moment. Yeah, just the practice of surrender. Uh it's the biggest thing in AA. It's the biggest thing in everything, right? Most religions, all that kind of stuff. Surrendering the mind, surrendering the ego. Um there's a there's the third step, prayer I've been reciting a lot lately. I've really been trying to work on prayer. I understand the meditation, right, is the receiving, right? Being quiet, being open. But I had a really hard time with prayer just because of the just the resistance I developed towards my concept of God, right? I'm forsaken, he's ignoring me, he doesn't love me, he's torturing me, he takes pleasure in watching me suffer is something that I believed for a very long time. Um, it's taken a long time to get over that as well. But, you know, I don't believe in a particular God. I call it, you know, great spirit, the universe, whatever. I'm finding it's easier to just say God. You know, it's a heavy word, it's got so much energy and many, many different ways behind it, but I do believe in a source, you know, it's the source, right? It's easy to call it God. It's someone that I can direct my attention towards, something. Um, and I really need to pray, hear myself out loud. The body responds differently when it hears its own voice speak to itself.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:42

You know, praying out loud.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:44

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:45

I'm gonna write that down. Because praying has been a thing for me too in the last couple weeks, coincidentally. Thinking about that more. I think it's always been hard for me to pray for things I want. I mean, that seems selfish.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:04

Like, who am I to want something?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:06

I'm just gonna read something here. That's the biggest thing, and that's what I've realized too. All my desires, like, all I really, really want is to serve the world, to serve my family, to serve the community of recovering people, not just with drugs, but with food. Like, food is such a massive issue, and it's been such a huge issue for me. Food addiction's insane right now. I mean, the the grocery store shelves are just filled with edible drugs. They're drugs, period. You know, pulverized wheat and crystal sugar. I mean, it's it's the crystal meth and the heroine of the food world. You know, it really is. And it's brutal. I mean, the food addiction is like the most brutal thing ever. It really is.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

It's probably what starts it all for people that um sugar brush and that dope, that quick dopamine as kids, and then it's probably it is the gateway drug, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:02

It sets up that reward system, that pathway.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:04

Yeah, if we could go back and tell Officer Dan that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:07

Yeah, right. No, it's so true. But yeah, just realizing what I really want. Sure, I want a nice house, a nice car, and things like that. Like those are fun things, and and those are spiritual things too, and they can be had and enjoyed. But I really want to just be in the flow of life and serve, you know. I want to teach people, I want to help people, I want to save people. Um, and so yeah, knowing God's will, right? Should be all, you know, I'm praying for to know his will. I know I'm included in the greatness. He's already got a plan for me that is so far beyond my wildest imagination.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:45

That if I align with it, right? Again, I don't have to create that. God already created everything in the universe. I don't have to create it, I just have to inhabit that space. And that's the practice. Not projecting it into the future, inhabiting now. It's the only place there is to be, you know, it's the only thing that exists. But in AAA, there's the third step prayer, which is a prayer I've been reciting a lot lately. It's kind of my mantra. It's become my mantra. And as opposed to battling myself, whenever I'm in an obsessive thought or right compulsive pattern, one of the loops, just stop and say this prayer two, three times, find the breath and move on. But it says, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. May I do thy will always. It just really sums it up, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:50

I love that. And yes, service. And I think it was a year or so ago that I realized what I want most is to watch a sunset or watch a sunrise or watch nature and not be thinking about what I have to do next or what I have to do tomorrow. Yeah. That's what a good life is to me. 100%. I'm on the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:17

We're here. That reminds me, real quick. One time I was hanging with my friend John Eric, and he had a boat up in Lake Minnetonka, and we were out there cruising around. And he was talking about something happening, like in the future, like something was gonna happen. And I said, That would like that'll that sounds awesome. That will be awesome. And he looks around and he goes, Dude, this is awesome, you know, like right now is awesome. And uh, you know, he's found a ton of success in life and is doing well. And he just he's an example of presence, someone just being grateful, living now, period, you know. And he just never really saw a lot of obstacles in his life. He just always saw beyond him, you know. But yeah. So much right now to be thankful, thankful for, you know, even as like in a middle class family, whatever, like we are so much richer than the vast majority of Earth.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:09

Umstacles on our path are our path.

unknown 1:19:16

100%.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:17

So that's cool that John could automatically kind of see that.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:22

Yeah, that's awesome.

unknown 1:19:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:24

Well, I'm so honored and so thankful that you came. This is so great.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:28

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:29

My favorite conversations.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:31

That's awesome. Super cool thing you got going on here.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:33

Yeah, thanks. Actually, you're the last one to record in this studio. We'll be taking it down this week because we need this space for office space. So um, your this episode will come out next week, and then there is one other episode coming out after that that we recorded last night, and then Veda and I are gonna do kind of like a recap, kind of talk about why we're taking a break for a bit, and uh, but we're gonna record that outside on a nice day.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:01

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:02

Out on the deck, so fun. Yeah, I'm very I'm excited that you were the last one to be in here, and we can leave this energy in this room for what needs to come next.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:14

Love it. Thank you, Beth.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:16

Thanks. Bye.