The Man in Motion Podcast

Episode 20 You Can See It Clearly — Now What?

• Bob Kaucher • Episode 20

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Awareness can change your life. It can create space, reduce reaction, and help you see yourself more clearly.

But awareness is not the destination.

In this episode, Bob explores the difference between observing your life and participating in it. Drawing from the influence of Michael Singer’s work, conversations with a friend working through real change, and his own experience of learning to move from reaction into responsibility, this episode looks at what happens after clarity arrives.

Because seeing the pattern is one thing.

Choosing what to do with it is another.

This is a conversation about awareness, growth, responsibility, and the moment life asks: now what?

Take what works. Leave what doesn’t. Choose, and participate in your life.

If this hit, share it with someone who needs to hear it. 

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Presented by Madison’s Path
https://madisonspath.com

SPEAKER_00

For the last couple years, a gentleman by the name of Michael Singer is a podcast that I've been listening to. And his work has genuinely changed my life. And I mean that. I truly mean that. Learning that I am not every thought that I think, it created space in my head in ways that I didn't know was possible. There's so much less noise.

SPEAKER_01

There's less reaction. There's less lurching about, I guess the only way I can describe it.

SPEAKER_00

I'm much more present. And for the first time in my life, I could actually observe myself instead of just being dragged around by every thought and every emotion that entered into my head. And until very recently, I thought that was the destination. Awareness, observation, peace. But very recently, a friend of mine, I've mentioned him here before, Mr. K and I had another conversation, and he kind of became the final step in a realization that I was putting together. Mr. K, again, he's a coworker. He's attended the Unstuck program. He's a gentleman I've I've been working with. He's trying to get his life together in a lot of ways. And I've been trying to help him through some of that, talking with him and watching him struggle with change. And I started noticing something in myself and in others. A lot of thoughtful people become highly sophisticated observers of their own lives while remaining quietly stationary. They understand themselves, they understand their patterns, and they see where they drift. But then nothing materially changes. And my realization was something that hit me pretty hard.

SPEAKER_01

Awareness is great. It removes distortion. But it doesn't automatically create direction. Awareness isn't the destination, it's the beginning.

SPEAKER_00

Because eventually life's gonna ask you, okay, great. Now what are we going to do? Because we can't just stand there and just observe.

SPEAKER_01

We're not made for that.

SPEAKER_00

And I gotta be honest with you, I think Michael Singer himself, if if he heard this, I could I could hear his excited laugh and his smile and him going, exactly. Welcome to the Man in Motion Podcast, episode 20. You can see it clearly. Now, what the hell do you do with it? I'm Bob. This is a show about what it means to be a man in today's world, navigating real life with strength, purpose, and clarity. We talk about growth, responsibility, and the ongoing work of becoming.

SPEAKER_01

Hmm. Without losing the core of who we are. It's not about hype.

SPEAKER_00

It's not about hacks, it's not about fixing yourself. It's about awareness, grounded thinking, and choosing a direction while you're already in motion. No excuses ever forward.

SPEAKER_01

Let's get to it. We live in a world today that you could almost call the age of awareness.

SPEAKER_00

Because there's this unprecedented access to growth content. We've got podcasts, which I'm a member of. I'm a member of this, this uh this wave. Podcasts and reels, and it seems like everyone knows therapy language, and and there's self-help culture and mindset content everywhere. Coaching is on the rise. And I to be clear, I think this is great. I think this is needed stuff. Because awareness culture has become mainstream, and and psychological concepts are now entering everyday conversation. And one of the greatest things I think for men, in some aspects, is that emotional literacy is becoming more common. And self-analysis, look actually looking at yourself, it's normalized. You know, it's it's not uncommon. I was I was walking through a train station the other day, and in four different conversations I overheard, I heard people talking about attachment styles. I heard two conversations about people talking about trauma language and trauma response. And then the fourth conversation, someone was talking about nervous system regulation. You know, and this just is just everyday life that this stuff is being talked about, you know, boundaries and shadow work and all of this. There's that there's conversations about this stuff, and it's happening everywhere. So it's like the more and more of the world is getting access to this sophisticated self-exploration, exploration language, excuse me, where people can explain patterns very well, and they can articulate you know the trauma and coping mechanisms, and and they have this understanding of internal behavior, which again is a good thing. You know, I think for for a long time, men especially were relegated to this position of did you die? No, okay, rub some dirt on it and get back to it. And you know, this this increasing mindset of of awareness, it's it's a good thing, it's a very good thing for us, you know. Because who doesn't want to feel recognized? Who doesn't want to feel seen? That recognition, it feels genuinely meaningful. You know, when someone says, hey man, I see you're struggling with this, good job on that. You know, that that's a hell of a thing. That that that insight, it it creates a sense of emotional validation.

SPEAKER_01

Um this is where it gets dangerous.

SPEAKER_00

And to be clear, I'm owning this. I was I was involved, I was I was this far into it. Because quote unquote working on yourself just becomes a form of consumption. Endless intake of growth content, um, awareness, just awareness itself is being mistaken for the actual transformation. And emotional processing becomes this excuse for no substantial behavioral changes, and the end result is that you become a stationary observer. You you have all this sophisticated observation, you you recognize your patterns, you are aware of where you're drifting, you're understanding your emotional behavior intellectually, but you you you view that as the end goal, you view it as I've arrived, and you don't use it for material change, you don't use it as fuel to become more. You see, you see people just explaining away, well, you know, my behaviors are repeating because that's who I am, and you keep returning to these same environments that aren't healthy for you, and you continue to make the same, if we're being honest, poor decisions. We we allow awareness to become this social currency that you know we get to sound deep and we get to speak the therapeutic language and we get to be perceived as emotionally intelligent, but it becomes performative. It's just it's this awareness becomes a performance. Your identity becomes I'm doing the work, and you explain your bad behavior instead of embodying the change.

SPEAKER_01

It's it's like you can describe your prison cell very well, but you're still living in the damn prison cell. You know, I mentioned this in the in the open, Michael Singer. If you haven't had the pleasure of being exposed to his work, I can't I can't recommend it enough.

SPEAKER_00

And half of you hearing this, if you go listen to it, you're gonna listen to one episode and you're gonna go, what the hell is this? Michael Singer is a he's a yogi. He teaches the spiritual and uh thoughtful side of yoga, not not the physical. Um describes himself as a Jewish yogi who thinks Jesus Christ was the greatest yogi to ever live.

SPEAKER_01

You gotta experience the man's work to understand it.

SPEAKER_00

But his his work, his just his podcast, and I know I know this is gonna sound crazy, but his podcast changed me. And it it was a process to get there. He's uh the man cranks out content like you wouldn't believe. I mean, there's close to 200 episodes since I've been following him, and I can't keep up. I I I don't know how he does it.

SPEAKER_01

He's the man's must have an entire team helping him.

SPEAKER_00

Um but I started listening to him shortly after Madison passed. My my wife actually found him first. Um she found his book, The Untethered Soul. And turned me on. I found his podcast kind of accidentally, and I needed something to listen to, and music wasn't hitting me that day. I think I was power washing the outside of my house and my patio and stuff, and I threw it on, and it was interesting.

SPEAKER_01

At first, it was interesting.

SPEAKER_00

But over time, it clicked for me. This this realization that I am not every thought that I think it's it's where it started for me. And that awareness of that allowed me to take these thoughts and say, you know what? No, that's that's not true. That thought right now, that is not who I am, that's not what I want to be. And it created the internal space for me to choose my reactions and not only to choose them, but to observe them. And less and less became an unconscious, you know, quote-unquote knee-jerk reaction or emotional response.

SPEAKER_01

And and this is the mistake I made.

SPEAKER_00

For a while, I thought awareness was the destination. Because I could sit there and watch myself and be comfortable in seeing what's going on and identifying okay, this is happening, this is this is what's going on here. And it brought me to a place of peace.

SPEAKER_01

And it felt like I had arrived. But something started feeling off after a while. And when I say a while, it it probably took me a couple years of this. And what I've come to realize, and this is this is what Mr.

SPEAKER_00

K helped me realize in the end, over the last few weeks, is that awareness is excellent. It really is. I I it's definitely such a needed thing. But awareness, it's not that it's not a destination. Awareness removes the distortion and it opens the door for you to get to the next destination.

SPEAKER_01

And then life starts asking you the question well, now what? Now what are we going to do?

SPEAKER_00

It's not. Awareness is not participation. Observation, you're standing outside of life. And what's the one thing I'm always telling you guys and girls to do? Take charge of your life, participate in your life, choose how you get to be a part of your life.

SPEAKER_01

You know, awareness creates relief.

SPEAKER_00

There's less mental noise, there's less compulsive reaction. You can it's it's you you can breathe internally, so to speak. You you you get this sense of peace because you can see what's going on and you're able to stand outside of it.

SPEAKER_01

And it it feels life-changing.

SPEAKER_00

You know, you don't suffer from the emotional swings because you you can look at it and go, oh, okay, this is hitting this. This this stuff, as Michael Sanger loves to call it, this stuff that I've got that I've held on to in my head is getting hit because this person did this. But I don't have to suffer because of that. They're not they're not actually the same. And it goes much further, but it it reduces your suffering and that detachment from all the chaos, it feels so profound. You know, it I'm not I'm not criticizing awareness. I don't want you to take that as that I am because awareness really is life-changing in so many very real ways.

SPEAKER_01

It removes that need to react immediately. But it's also seductive.

SPEAKER_00

Because when you remain in awareness mode and you watch instead of react, when you quote unquote stay centered and you avoid disturbance and and and you become comfortable in that.

SPEAKER_01

But it's it's a stall point. You become a highly sophisticated observer of your own life and you recognize everything, but you don't use it. You don't embody the place you're trying to get to. And you get clarity at the cost of participation. And eventually you become this passive observer where observation replaces movement.

SPEAKER_00

It's it's it's it's odd, it's hard to explain because awareness removes distortion, it creates clarity, it reveals truth, and it shows you your patterns.

SPEAKER_01

But it's not movement. And eventually you're going to come to a position where life asks you some hard questions.

SPEAKER_00

What are you gonna do now? What are you gonna build? What responsibilities are you choosing?

SPEAKER_01

What action is going to emerge from all this? See, people aren't lazy. People aren't stupid. I don't think any of you are. And you could explain yourself incredibly well.

SPEAKER_00

But that awareness doesn't leave you in a place where you are in motion, where you can choose a direction, or you have chosen a direction. You you kind of know this. You you know the shape of the anchor that's holding you down.

SPEAKER_01

You just don't know how to untie from it. Or maybe you're afraid to. Seeing clearly, it's uncomfortable. It is. But it's also manageable. It's a known quantity.

SPEAKER_00

I can see this, I can see this behavior, I know the outcome from this behavior. So if I just keep repeating this outcome or repeating this behavior, I know what the outcome is going to be.

SPEAKER_01

Whereas new action, new direction, that's scary. It's unknown.

SPEAKER_00

It creates new consequences, it destabilizes who we are, and it risks uncertainty, and we we could lose.

SPEAKER_01

Things could go away. But I think that begs the question if things can go away, are they really the things that you don't want to go away? See, awareness this is what I just realized. Awareness creates responsibility. Seeing clearly it changes a lot, but it also can set in motion events that will demand response.

SPEAKER_00

Awareness will stop being passive, and eventually it's going to ask you for conscious participation. We we miss that.

SPEAKER_01

We confuse that.

SPEAKER_00

You know, we we've become a society, and again, I'm not being critical of this because I'm I'm a part of this.

SPEAKER_01

But I'm also aware of it.

SPEAKER_00

We become a society, we consume growth instead of live it, you know. That that recognition, the insightfulness, the understanding yourself, it it feels powerful. And the idea of we have a whole culture of people that are just quote unquote working on themselves, then they don't do anything with it.

SPEAKER_01

And it's it's that trap of stationary awareness being intellectually awake but behaviorally unchanged. So, what do we do with all this? That's a good question. I'm trying to figure that out myself. For me, awareness has created responsibility.

SPEAKER_00

Um, I I see clearly, or at least as clearly as I'm capable of, because I am a work in progress just like the rest of us. But seeing clearly changes the equation for me.

SPEAKER_01

See, I'm unable to hide from myself anymore. But I also, because I can't hide from myself and I see things clearly, my awareness can no longer remain passive. Life has put me in a position where it's asking for responses. But I don't want to step into the performative culture. Conscious participation? Yes. That's that's the goal. What does that mean? It means I'm not going to be blindly productive.

SPEAKER_00

I'm not going to spend days and weeks trying to endlessly optimize. But I'm also not going to just compulsively do whatever.

SPEAKER_01

The goal is to enter life intentionally.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm done with the drifting. I'm done with the letting life push me where it will. I'm going to choose my direction.

SPEAKER_01

Instead of just being aware, I'm going to act from awareness.

SPEAKER_00

And all these things that I've learned, and all these things that I've recognized, and all these things that I have discovered about myself, I'm going to embody.

SPEAKER_01

And change the ones that I don't like. Because the reality of this thing is that awareness and action, they belong together.

SPEAKER_00

Awareness without action is incomplete. Insight without movement, understanding without living, clarity without participation, none of these things are whole.

SPEAKER_01

And action without awareness, well that's that's how I've lived most of my fifty years.

SPEAKER_00

Blind reaction, ego-driven decisions, trauma-driven behaviors, unconscious compulsion masquerading as purpose.

SPEAKER_01

You know, I've gotten better as I got older. And it's amazing to me that I look back on myself in my twenties and even some of my early 30s. At how I was just I was an animal. And in Michael Singer. Michael Singer happened to me, we'll put it that way. So then my work became to become aware, to observe, to create space, to escape unconsciousness. And God bless him. But now I'm realizing that that was just the door.

SPEAKER_00

That wasn't the work.

SPEAKER_01

That was the equivalent of me cleaning out the garage so I could actually work.

SPEAKER_00

I now choose to enter my life fully. I'm going to move intentionally. I'm going to embody awareness instead of merely observing it.

SPEAKER_01

And I invite you to join me. Because that's now my work. I have a grandson, even. And I'm entering a stage in my life where my life is becoming my own again.

SPEAKER_00

And I understand that some of you might just be entering that stage where you're like me and coming to where your life has starting to become your own again, and you're getting time. Or maybe you're at the other end of it where you're just beginning. And you're trying to live a better life to build something more.

SPEAKER_01

And you're trying to start right. So if I may. Just some realizations.

SPEAKER_00

I think a lot of people spend years waiting for clarity before they move. We wait to feel ready, we wait to feel certain, we wait to fully understand ourselves first.

SPEAKER_01

Life doesn't work that way. Life doesn't give guarantees. Life is never certain, and you will never ever actually be ready. And at some point the work stops being awareness and it starts being participation. Starts being making choices, picking direction.

SPEAKER_00

To have the conversation that you keep avoiding. To take up the responsibility that you already know is yours. Or to enter the parts of your life that you keep observing instead of entering.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm not telling you to do all this at once. I'm not telling you to do it perfectly because no one does it perfectly. But I also don't want you to do it as some new performance. But I am asking you to do it consciously, to choose it, to intentionally and honestly participate. And make the hard choices. Yeah, I think uh Mr. Singer, if you ever hear this, I think I can hear your laugh and you just going exactly. Because maybe the goal. Maybe the goal was never to just wake up. Maybe the goal is to enter your life fully awake. Brothers and sisters, that's it for today. Take what works, leave what doesn't. Choose and participate in your life.