#14 - Lincoln Stoller - Beyond comfort: why growth lives on the edge

A thousand-foot fall tends to clarify what matters. Lincoln Stoller joins me for a wide-ranging conversation that starts on a steep slope of Mount Robson and quickly turns into something bigger: how we meet uncertainty, how we build real resilience, and why the stories we tell about “luck” often hide the role of preparation, awareness, and responsibility.

Lincoln’s life crosses borders that most people keep separate. He has worked in science and technology, including time around NASA and years in physics and astronomy, while also practicing as a therapist and exploring altered states of consciousness. We dig into the false choice between science and spirituality, why pop interpretations of quantum physics can mislead, and the more useful lesson he takes from it: outcomes aren’t as clean or exclusive as our minds want them to be, especially in relationships where words like honesty, commitment, and love mean different things to different people.

We also talk about indigenous cultures and community-based responsibility, plus the cultural gap between traditional shamanic practice and modern Western psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Lincoln shares a grounded view of plant medicine, set and setting, agency, and the hard part most people skip: integration. We close with practical tools from his clinical work, including heart rate variability, biofeedback, neurofeedback, dream work, and how to create enough mental space to respond instead of react.

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Overview

Peter Kolakovic 0:01

Hello everyone and welcome back to My Best Life, the podcast where we explore the ideas, experiences, and perspectives that help us live with greater purpose, awareness, and authenticity. My guest today is Lincoln Stoller, a man whose life defies easy categorization. Over the years, Lincoln has worked as a physicist, astronomer, researcher, psychotherapist, and explorer. He has studied with some of the great thinkers of our time, immersed himself in indigenous cultures, and pursued a lifelong quest to understand both the outer world of science and the inner world of human consciousness. What makes this conversation so fascinating is that Lincoln doesn't see science and spirituality as opposing forces. Instead, he views them as complementary ways of exploring reality. His journey has taken him from laboratories and observatories to remote mountain peaks and profound personal experiences that have challenged his understanding of life itself. During our conversation, Lincoln shares stories from a lifetime of adventure, including a remarkable and harrowing experience when he survived a thousand foot fall while climbing Mount Robson. It's the kind of story that immediately captures your attention, but what stayed with me wasn't just the dramatic event itself, it was the insight that emerged from it. The realization that life often unfolds beyond our plans, and that preparation, awareness, and resilience can make all the difference when the unexpected happens. We also explore the nature of risk and why some of life's greatest lessons come from stepping into uncertainty. Lincoln reflects on the risks he has taken throughout his life, from his adventures in the mountains to the deeply personal risks involved in relationships, career choices, and pursuing unconventional paths. His perspective invites us to reconsider how we think about success, failure, and the value of experiences that don't always unfold according to plan. Another theme that runs throughout our discussion is balance. The balance between logic and intuition, science and spirituality, certainty and mystery. In a world that often asks us to choose one side or the other, Lincoln offers a refreshing perspective that wisdom may come not from choosing between these seemingly opposite viewpoints, but from learning how they inform and enrich one another. This is a conversation about curiosity, courage, and what it means to live a life of exploration. Whether you're drawn to science, spirituality, adventure, or simply the pursuit of deeper understanding, I think you'll find something meaningful in Lincoln's story. So settle in and join me for a thought-provoking conversation with Lincoln Stoller as we explore adventure, risk, consciousness, and the lessons that emerge when we're willing to venture beyond the boundaries of the familiar. If you enjoyed this episode, please like it, share it, and please subscribe. As always, thanks for listening. Lincoln Stoller, welcome to my best life. It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

I'm happy to talk to you.

Why Adventure Matters

Peter Kolakovic 4:04

Now there's so much, Lincoln, in your life story that intrigues me that you know, as we were discussing before we started recording, it's difficult for me to know exactly where to begin. But I thought I would begin with the theme of adventure, because it seems to me like your life has been full of adventure. Mark Twain once wrote that 20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowl lines. Throw off the bow lines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails, explore, dream, discover. And one more quote from Helen Keller, who wrote Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

Well, I don't know about that one, but okay. She's she's great, but alright.

Peter Kolakovic 5:07

So, yeah, as I said, I was I was looking through your your bio as I was preparing for this episode, and I I did want to read just an excerpt from your Amazon author bio because you've written a few books, and I really found it fascinating that you've been involved in in so many different disciplines, and your life has really been full of adventure. So it says here, Lincoln Stoller grew up around and was mentored by artists, engineers, scientists, athletes, and educators, recognized as some of the greatest of the century, including three Nobel laureates in physics and a handful of world famous mountaineers, as well as by numerous visionaries, mystics, shamans, and madmen. It goes on to say that you are published in the academic and popular press as an astronomer, physicist, software architect, neurologist, anthropologist, psychotherapist, explorer, and educator. I don't know where you find the time for all of these different disciplines. And just one old. And just one final excerpt to get us launched on our theme of adventure. Says here, as a teenager, you traveled the world climbing mountains, and in the process fell a thousand feet off the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, swam across the Arctic Sea, crashed your airplane, collapsed your horse. I'm not sure I know what that means, stepped in quicksand, survived frostbite, starved, poisoned yourself, survived a major earthquake, was buried in an avalanche, and became a cultural ambassador to families in Central America, Mongolia, and the Caribbean. Wow. That's true. That's true. That's that's quite the life. And as I was saying, there's there's so much in there that we could explore. But let's start with with adventure and the mountains. How how on earth did you survive falling a thousand feet? Well, first of all, where was it? What happened? And and yeah, how did you survive that fall? Well, and what did it teach you?

The Mount Robson Fall Story

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Um it was Mount Robson. I must have been 16. Mount Robson is, you know, Canadian Rockies. The situation was odd. My friends were being guided, and I was tagging along, not particularly welcome in a guided group because I didn't pay, I don't think. So they kind of hooked me up with the least qualified and most unpleasant client. So I didn't really have the authority, but I had the responsibility. So we were descending from the summit, you know, I'll kind of cut this down to 30 seconds, and and he wasn't you know, walking properly. It was a fairly steep slope, and you know, he had cramp ons and ice acts, and and we were roped together, and he was leaving slack. You're not supposed to leap slack between if you're roped up, because that means one person falls, and by the time the other person catches them, they're going 90 miles an hour. So I was telling him to slow down, and he wasn't slowing down, he wasn't listening to me, and then he fell. And he had, you know, 40 feet of slack. So, of course, when the rope went taut, he just yanked me right off. And why I survived was just luck because we went, you know. But actually, it was one of my more interesting experiences because I had like a good 15 seconds to contemplate my life as I was spinning through the air, and I took a very calm and contemplative view of looking at what I could see, which was just the horizon zipping past, you know, around and around, and my ice axe flying around. It was tethered, but it was you know, gouging me, tearing at me, and and I was just spinning, and you know, you're not gonna stop unless you hit something. It's of course the hitting that is the problem. And when we finally descended, uh flew down the summit period, we pyramid, we happily landed in a snow patch before the the big glacier cliffs. And so I guess you'd say that was luck. And we were still somewhat en route since we were basically descending down the fall line anyway, and all I got was a kind of twisted ankle. So but it was you know a very interesting experience. It's it was an experience in authority, tolerance, assertiveness, calmness, and well, there wasn't much you could do, you know, in technically, you just out of control. So, you know, I I tried at one point to stop myself, but too much kinetic

Luck, Judgment, And Avoidable Risk

SPEAKER_02 10:20

energy.

Peter Kolakovic 10:20

So Right, right. So you you you mentioned being lucky. It seems like you know, you've had quite a bit of luck if you survived an airplane crash, survived frostbite, survived something in quicksand.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Well, they're all different, you know. Some are stupid. Some are stupid. You know, the airplane crash, I was not so smart. The the quicksand was you could say wonderful because I realize how rare it is. Really, quite a rare natural phenomenon. And I consider myself privileged to have stepped in quicksand. And I I mean, I don't know what r quicksand could do for you, but it's clear once you've stepped in it what's going on. It's like an education in a moment when you suddenly realize what's going on. So, but you know, I I don't know if it's um as lucky. I I do think I'm I've I've exerted a certain amount of wisdom in avoiding worse situations. You know, couldn't avoid the avalanche. Couldn't really avoid the quicksand, I mean, unless you really were looking for it. You know, the horse, which you said you didn't understand it, though you tried to jump over a little brook and the horse collapsed. I don't know why. You think it would land on its feet? But this I wasn't a very good horseman. But I was in Mongolia where everybody rides horses, so it's ride horse or walk. And so I rode the horse. And I I mean, I don't know how do you tell a horse to jump? I guess if you learn, you could but I just said, you know, let's go forward, and I don't think I did it right. So he fell over, and I was on his the side. But you know, these are I don't know. Well, the other funny thing about Mongolia is everyone carries a gun when you're in the wilderness, so they gave me a gun, you know. I don't have uh any experience shooting, but here I am riding a horse, I don't know how to ride with a gun, I don't know how to shoot, in a place I don't know where I am. So but I was with friends, right? So that was better than being completely stupid.

Peter Kolakovic 12:31

As I mentioned earlier, there are you know some big themes that we could explore in your in your biography. And you know, adventure was was the one that I began with.

Science Versus Spirituality Is A Trap

Peter Kolakovic 12:40

I also wanted to maybe touch briefly upon your experience in the realm of science and and with its intersection with spirituality. You have pursued a high-level career in science and technology. You worked for NASA for a time and earned your doctorate in quantum physics and spent 15 years working as a physicist and astronomer. So at the same time, you've got this deep interest in spiritual pursuits, in plant medicine, and working with indigenous cultures, and we'll we'll get into that. But so how do you balance hard science with deep spirituality? Can those things be balanced?

SPEAKER_02 13:28

I think they balance, you know, like a scale on opposite sides of the fulcrum. That they don't so the scientists I've worked around are not particularly spiritual, open-minded, or creative, not very tolerant, and not very worldly. That's just why I'm not one of them. And why I never got along. But a few, and you know, this changes with the generations. You know, you know, in the early 1900s things were very different in science. People were moving around from Europe to the US. Science was going undergoing a revolution of some kind in quantum mechanics and other things, and there was lots of practical applications. So there was a lot of money, power, and prestige to be traded. And that's not really the case anymore, and hasn't been for the last fifty years. So, you know, you haven't heard much about fusion energy production. You've heard about you know, the most exciting things in science have been lithium batteries and and brushless motors, which are the underpinning of electric everything. And you know, it's like people don't recognize that Elon Elon Musk's fortune is built on uh pretty prosaic science. Like I say, lithium batteries and brushless motors, which there were electric cars before he came along, and he just was the guy who rode the cross cusp of the wave. Also, he's a great salesman. But so the spirituality I mean I did rub shoulders with two or three great scientists who were not typical people. They were spiritual in their time. I mean, they weren't spiritual in our definition, they came from a different culture and a different you know, three or four generations ago. A kind of practical. They were both very practical. I would say three of them. I'm thinking of three. A neurologist and two physicists. So they were practical, they were committed, they were stubborn, they were exacting, and they were competent. And they're kind of role models to me. Although I do think the best role model is somebody you finally overcome. You know, you understand their flaws, otherwise you sort of put them on a pedestal and you don't really understand them. So, you know, some of those guys, they're just I still can't find very much flaws in them, but okay, they're none of them are alive anymore. And I think you pursue spirituality, as I say, as a balancing to science. And I am a little disappointed that the spiritual people you find, for the most part, don't know any science. Generally it doesn't bother them, although some try to pretend they know and they're annoying. And the scientist the the highly scientific people, the most engineering types, may not be particularly spiritual. I grew up in a house of artists and architecture was the big thing. It was my father's field. And I have some experience with architects, and they're an interesting combination, right? Because they're engineers and creatives at the same time, and they tend to be a little crazy in their pronouncements, and they're not always, you know, socially well adjusted either. But they make interesting stories. And so that was so my father wasn't an architect, he was a photographer for architects, so he knew them, but he didn't have to play their game quite so much. He didn't have to sell himself to clients. He sold himself to magazines who hired him to create publicity pictures for their for their, you know, clientele. So th that's kind of an interesting intermediate realm. Like I I wouldn't say architects are great spiritual leaders, but they tend to be aesthetic, very aesthetic in their orientation, much more so than scientists these days. And so I kind of feel very I you know, I'm a I'm not a square peg in a round hole. There's there's more shapes and holes than square and round, but I'm I don't fit in any of the areas that I've been involved in. Of course, nobody fits into mountaineering. That's just everybody's odd, and that I'm that may be true of any high-risk sports. You've got to have a very personal motivation. But mountaineering seems to attract an even crazier bunch of people who are willing to endure suffering and safety. For what, you know? And you could and like when I do science, I say, what uh w why? Who cares? Why do I fight with these people who don't even know what they're talking about? Why don't I just say, you know, to hell with it? And I think it's ego. You know, I like to I would like to redeem myself from all those years of being dissed by scientists who didn't think I had enough skill. And gee, I wish I didn't care. But I'm not going to make any money from it, right? Because I'm not they don't hire me for this. I don't want their prizes. They don't come with money anyway. They come with strings. So it's it's ego. It's just it makes me feel good that I can thumb my nose at all the people who said it was this way when in fact it's not. And I don't think I'm gonna get over it. So, you know, spirituality still is out of reach. I haven't answered your question, but i I think rehabilitating myself involves spiritual practices. But as a therapist, I'm not all that hooked on the spirituality. I would call it uh redemptive uh uh healing practices. I mean almost healing, you know? Personally healing practices. So that's sort of how my life combines. And of course, unless you d do stuff, stuff doesn't happen. So do more and you'll get more. And and just, you know, get some thick skin and some tough bones and calluses in terms of failing a lot.

The Tao Of Physics Reality Check

Peter Kolakovic 20:50

I'm wondering if you're familiar with this book that I came across some years ago. I think it was published back in the 60s or 70s. And if I'm not mistaken, the title was The Tao of Physics.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Oh, Fritzhoff, yeah.

Peter Kolakovic 21:06

Yes, Fritchioff.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Kapra.

Peter Kolakovic 21:08

Capra, yeah. And it was all about how the the language of modern quantum physics or many similarities to the language employed in many Eastern spiritual traditions. I'm I'm wondering if you can comment on that.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Yeah, you know, it was the 1970s in Berkeley, and everybody was like, you know, smoking pot and and and wearing saffron robes, and and yeah, I mean I liked that book. It was an important book, uh it was inspiring, and I would he had a little group that would get together and he would preside over them and I would listen to him talk and but it I didn't I didn't think he actually went any further than the book. I think the book was mostly a a hundred and ten percent of his skill. And he basically says some of these what are now considered amateurish things about physics. You know, everything is connected to everything else, which is false. And you know, kind of a butterfly effect, you know, small changes can have big consequences. And it all starts sounding very consequential and insightful. But if you look at the physics of it, that's not the direction it goes. It it goes into engineering and practical applications. And this was a time when chaos theory was being developed and people were all agog about having seeing structures where they thought chaos made everything random, but there were in fact structures in the randomness. So you know that sounds like oh my God, you know it's like structures in the wild and crazy world which we can learn to understand if we meditate long enough. It was that kind of well no, actually the the structures are very elusive. They're not particularly human involved in the human world. They take a lot of technology to see these structures and experimentally observe transitions between things and and Fritchev was also riding that cultural wave. And you know after that book I don't think much came of him I never ran into him again or any of his work. So anyway so yeah it was a great book and it was inspiring but you know it's it's false to believe that you can meditate your way to good physics or that you can simply calculate what calculate your way to deep spirituality. You know that they both take a different kind of work. Right right and they do take work.

Quantum Thinking As A Life Metaphor

Peter Kolakovic 24:22

For sure well thank you for that and and I'm certainly no expert in in quantum physics don't claim to be at all but you know from what little I understand which is not much at all or from what little I've heard you know sometimes there are allusions to you know scientists working in this domain and almost basically coming to the conclusion that the results of the their experiments are very unexpected, almost spooky, you know, that reality at the quantum level does not behave at all in the way that we thought that it behaves so I'm I'm just wondering how, if it has at all, how has quantum physics changed the way that you look at reality Yeah I think most people who work in quantum physics don't know what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

And it's changed my view of reality in the sense that I thought science was going to reveal the world to us. But it turns out to be just another area where a lot of people easily get confused and go down the wrong path and then entrench their ignorance in textbooks and other forms of certified knowledge. So yeah there are there are nice analogies in quantum mechanics m just because there are nice analogies in any other way of looking at things. You know you can find nice analogies in modern art and you can find nice analogies in trends in politics and culture. So quantum mechanics has some structures and the the structure really the fundamental structure in quantum mechanics which is the only thing I think you can trust is that there isn't one way to an outcome there are always several ways to get to an outcome and we tend to think of them as exclusive and so now I'm talking about personal view of reality human view. We tend to think that we're making decisions and we're making important consequential exclusive decisions in how to get from A to B. When the fact is that we're very loose and error prone in our thoughts and perceptions and all the other ways of getting from A to B impinge on us and affect us. So in a formal sense quantum mechanics would say if you can go from A, let's say to C, you know that if you want to end up at a certain condition, I'll call it C, like AB, C you start at A, you get to C, and you'll get there 20% of the time or you could start from B and get to C and you'll get there 40% of the time. And you think and physicists think that the two are classical physicists that the two are exclusive and you got to choose one or the other. But if you watch the world and how it behaves it always ends up at C at 30% of the time in between the 20 and the 40 because it does both. It does a little of both and so that you can formalize it in physics terms but I think in human terms it's valid. You can try to build a relationship on trust, commitment and honesty, trying to avoid all the pitfalls of what you would end up with if you failed to get trust commitment and honesty. But in the end you'll get something that's kind of a hybrid because you don't actually understand any of these concepts in their deepest sense. You know who's honest? Who's committed there's you know all this stuff is relative and other people's version of what's important and when is not going to be the same as yours. I liked mountaineering because people were in agreement you know that looks dangerous. Let's not do that. You know there's no food now. We need to go here or we've run out of this or now this is a problem that threatens us all. There could be a lot of agreement and I liked agreement maybe I grew up in too creative a household everybody kind of going after different directions. So I I liked that and it it taught me to be responsible it taught me or started to teach me how to judge other people and I had the kind of mountaineer engineer attitude that you know if you if you proved yourself on some small test then we could head off to Mount Everest. And you know I know people who've headed off to Mount Everest and it's not something you should take lightly happily I I don't think I would have known better. I wouldn't have done that. But there are some things I shouldn't have done which I did like crashing the airplane stuff like that.

Peter Kolakovic 29:36

That's

Indigenous Community And Real Responsibility

Peter Kolakovic 29:37

I regret that I wanted to shift gears a little bit maybe away from modern science to talk a little bit about your experience working with indigenous communities around the world who, I suppose you could say practice a different type of science in a way coming back to your your bio you studied human culture and altered states of consciousness spent years traveling and living with indigenous cultures around the globe spent time with Caribbean fishermen, Mongolian desert nomads, and tribal elders in the Darien jungle I'm not sure I know where that is Panama. Panama okay thank you in the jungles of Ecuador you learned about traditional plant medicines and you spent 20 years participating in and facilitating shamanic psychedelic ceremonies well that's all a bit stretched you know there were I did other things as well during those time periods. Sure sure so what did these experiences working with indigenous cultures how do they look at healing differently than than we do in modern society?

SPEAKER_02 30:56

How do they look at the world differently well I think a great place to start is ADHD and the diagnosis we give to children you know that that's such a Western idea that you can you can uh pathologize childhood and it's a reflection I think of the failure of the Western family that it would allow that so I was very touched well I lived with a in a fishing village for four weeks in the Caribbean you know I lived with a family I lived with a boy my age and I knew the area pretty well I'd been there in the past many years my parents had a house in a neighboring white people's area and I would go there every year and at some point I just decided to stop living with the white people and live with the locals and then I I saw you know that these were what we would call poor people but there was no one homeless or hungry there was also no one particularly rich. There were a few people who came in with money because they worked on cargo boats and had money you know wanted to be like Jimmy Cliff and Jamaican criminals and had guns and you know baubles but they were quickly shunned uh into behaving properly and there were no orphaned kids although there was plenty of out out of wedlock pregnancy so everybody took care of the community took a role in the community and it wasn't government sponsored it wasn't controlled nobody voted on it it was a basically matriarchal system where the women managed the community and the men went fishing and got drunk. And that was what I witnessed but you know there are levels underneath so that the drunk guys would act stupid but when they went home they would probably sober up when they talked to their wives and made decisions about their you know out of wedlock children. So it it wasn't so obvious to an outsider like me all the energies that were going on. But I could see that like I say there was no one hungry, no one homeless and there wasn't a lot of opportunity to go anywhere. You know a lot of people weren't even couldn't read or write well some of the older people and education ended at sixth grade with an essentially third grade education at a Western standard. And if you wanted to go further it was questionable about you'd have to leave because there was no role for being a lawyer or something at least in a fishing village. You'd have to go move out. Anyway so the the Caribbean was very interesting as a cultural eye opener and I had less experience with in Mongolia and and the American indigenous peoples but some and and very uh very different. Yeah like I say you can't quite know as an outsider how much of what you see how deep what you're seeing goes and how much you're missing.

Peter Kolakovic 34:33

Right, sure but I did feel fairly exposed to what you might call the truth of things so what do you think modern Western society can learn from some of these more traditional communities?

SPEAKER_02 34:53

It can learn to be responsible it can learn to be intelligent it can learn to take care of itself I mean there's a I think one of the biggest problems in America the US and less so the smaller countries of the Western world is that they have had too much privilege and too much power and not enough responsibility so that they could, you know, offshore whatever they wanted they could buy from wherever they wanted they could set the rules on other people through politics and power and foreign aid and nobody really cared except about the price of gas and whether or not they could get a job. So then you get you know it's just this terrible disjunction about politicians who have world power and an electorate who doesn't care about the world and only cares about local issues. So that doesn't work out well then you you get a bunch of tyrannies or tyrannical people. And so I say it seems to happen less in the smaller third world countries that have to collaborate with each other and coordinate their resources and their borders and their social structures I one of the funny things is that the education in the United States is substandard I would say and some of the better countries Finland is noted to be one of the best countries for adolescent education and people ask the Finns how did you get such a good educational structure and they said well it's because we took the research from the United States and we put it into practice but the people in the U.S. don't so and that's I think quite true I have a lot of experience with education and I've written a lot on it and my approach is basically developmental and if you look at education it's fairly obvious that it's built on an industrial model of training people how to get jobs and work in the economy rather than how to develop into capable people and govern themselves. So I'm in the capable people and govern yourself view of education I forgot your question.

Peter Kolakovic 37:20

The question was about what Western society can learn from well yeah they it can learn to to walk its talk basically you know it can learn to take its insights seriously and put them into practice I mean that doesn't really answer your question.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

From traditional cultures well it sort of does traditional cultures have to take care of themselves. When I lived in the jungles of Panama I lived with people who were days away from any civilization what we would call civilization and they were very smart capable people because there was no one else to take care of them. They could do everything. Now they didn't understand everything because they weren't exposed to it for example many of them just wanted to make enough money to buy chainsaws to cut down the forest because to them the forest was an inexhaustible resource and the more you cut down the more money you made the more money you made you know the safer and more comfortable your life would be and they you know they really didn't understand ecology and I know this because I watched them learning about it. And so we could learn from them to be self-sufficient, responsible attentive basically you have to be attentive to what's going on. They didn't understand ecology because they never run out of resources. They didn't have much but you know it was already there were some things that were already getting scarce certain building materials had been been foraged to such an extent that it took like an hour of walking to get certain trees that you needed to build your aspects of your house. So they were coming to those realizations and y if we look at those models and take them seriously, but like who does? No one. But if we did look ahead with a little more foresight and stop looking at just the price of gas and whether we have dandelions on our lawn or or whatever the small view is that's being responsible being responsible beyond the immediate needs of yourself. You know what do your kids really need? They need the freedom to make mistakes they need the freedom to do stupid things and then you need to come in and tell them you know but in a way they understand. So you can't just be a helicopter mom and protect them from everything and you can't be a disciplinarian and prevent them from learning I mean I was I don't I'm not sure I how I feel about this but my parents didn't seem to care about me. You know when I went off to do crazy things in the mountains they said have a nice day you know call us when you get back and I'm not sure that was a responsible thing to do. They should have like said where are you going? Are you sure you this is going to be safe because I did some really some really stupid things. I mean I only knew them after the fact I I thought I was I thought I was doing smart stuff but you know when you get to the end of the rope and all of a sudden you're looking at your own mortality you realize you might have missed a few important steps. So it always helps to have somebody on board a teacher a mentor a guide if not with you within arm's length so I did have a few important people so here's an example everybody should learn when you're walking somewhere new whether it's in the woods in the mountains or in the city turn around and look where you've gone look behind you frequently because if you have to retreat in any situation you're going to be looking at the opposite perspective of the one you looked at when you were outgoing and you won't know where you are you'll get lost now this would be serious in the woods or in the mountains but even in the city you know pay attention to where you are what it looks like and you know it's hard to remember stuff but if you try you'll remember a little more than if you don't and as a result you'll be a better driver you'll be a better navigator and you'll have more time to think about other things like judgments and people and prices than if you would if you're in a state of confusion. You know all accidents happen as a as a combination of things sounds like very sage

Psychedelics Without Cultural Confusion

SPEAKER_02 42:39

advice.

Peter Kolakovic 42:39

Well that's useful I think so I did want to touch upon briefly your experience and you know we could dedicate an entire episode to this as it's a subject that is near and dear to my heart but uh your experience facilitating shamanic psychedelic ceremonies. We were talking about you know knowledge and wisdom from from traditional societies and this is one thing that we do see in in some traditional societies particularly in the Amazon the use of certain plant medicines for healing for spiritual growth you've spent quite a bit of time seems facilitating psychedelic ceremonies so I'm I'm wondering if you can speak to that experience and you know what it taught you about or what it taught you just generally.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

I think it's important all right so yeah these cultures use these plants and now there's an interest in Western psychology in what's called psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and it's important to recognize there's a complete disjuncture in understanding here. Traditional cultures don't Call disease what we call disease. They don't call healing what we call healing. They don't call spirit what we call spirit. So when they're doing something with a plant, and you say they're doing some healing spiritual exercise, I mean, no, they're not. Not what you think they're doing. They're doing something else. The shamans are not healers, they're not doctors, they're not giving you medicine, they're not curing you of disease. They're doing something else. They are calling in the spirits to navigate and moderate the social life of the community. They don't see you as an independent person with a mental illness that needs to be cured. Traditional societies see you as a person who's not fitting into the community properly or who has a problem that threatens the community structure. And the divine forces need to be called in in their rightful role to rebalance the community and your role in it. So, you know, you say, I have a disease, heal me. They'll laugh at you. You know, you stupid white man. And and it's true, because the the stupid white man invades their community, gives them money, expects them to dance around. They think it's a joke. Because it is a joke. You know, they do the thing that they do for their community, and you give them lots of money, and they go home. And and you think you're healed or whatever. So it's a different thing that Westerners do with these chemicals. And whether you hear the divine voice voice speaking to you or not, or whether you, you know, confront hell or your hell or your past is your thing. So I generally well work with Western people in their Western mind. And if we deal with psychedelics, it's just as in terms of what is it doing for you and your problem? Which could be a disease, but mostly it's just a mental stress of some kind. Of course, disease can stress you out, of course. But to go into a traditional context, I'm not a Navajo, I'm not a Embera, I'm not from the Amazon. I can visit. I you know, if I do visit and I take their bruise and I get excited, you know, I remember one shaman trying to like beat me down because I was getting too excited, too much energy. And I thought that was funny. I mean, it is funny. So I'd say I I follow the Western model. I have Western clients with Western problems who think they have diseases and have been diagnosed with something or other, and they want medicines, and the medicine is gonna cure them. None of this is traditional. So, okay. I think the psychedelics are a key to a different perspective. And you can get that through dreams, you can get it through extreme deprivation, you can get it through hypnosis, you can get it through disease, you know, feverish I I've had some insightful diseases. Actually, I don't recommend that, but you know, it does happen. And of course, the different kinds of psychedelics put you in different spaces. So, you know, whether it's LSD or mushrooms or ayahuasca or DMT. And I think you have to appreciate them. I'm not sure the medicines, if we could call them that, I don't like the use of that term, but I'm not sure the chemicals are intrinsically different. It seems to have a lot to do with your state of mind at the time. You know, if you're in a bad state of mind, you're gonna have a bad experience probably with anything. Alternatively, a good state of mind might make you feel quite ecstatic. But the question is, what do you learn from that experience? Can you bring it back? Can you integrate it? Does it have meaning? Did you have agency, or were you just, you know, blown through the landscape like a leaf and settled without kind of knowing what happened to you? So going into it, hypnosis can take you back to it. Dream work can you can learn to be more intentional in your dreams. So that's what I'd say. It's all part of a bigger picture. I don't believe psychedelics are a particular medicine for a particular illness.

Biofeedback, Dreams, And Mental Training

Peter Kolakovic 49:11

Okay, thank you. You know, you're you you kind of touched upon the theme of altered states of consciousness and different modalities for achieving altered states, whether through I'm not sure if you mentioned fasting, but I think that's one of the ones that uh can also trigger altered states for some people. And I know that you've done in your very interesting life, you've you've also worked as a therapist, and I think you're still doing that. Um providing biofeedback and neurofeedback training to clients, doing clinical counseling and hypnotherapy. You mentioned the dream work, sleep rhythms, and regression therapy. So, what has that experience taught you about how we how our minds work and and how we can, or if we need to, reprogram our minds for people who are feeling stuck, anxious, stressed because of modern life.

SPEAKER_02 50:21

Okay, I'd I'd say there are three levels there. There's modern life, the stresses that you endure. There's your mental ability, your habits, your triggers, your reflexes, and there's your memories, you know, who you built yourself to be and how you respond. And each of those has a role. So, you know, the first thing is, you know, stop the stressors, stop the things that annoy you, frustrate you, and depress you. Recognize how you've brought those into your life, how you facilitate their continued effect on you, and take an act or act to improve them. Have better boundaries, make better decisions, free yourself of certain addictions to money, support, prestige, material goods, ice cream, whatever it is that's not doing well for you. Maybe it's having, you know, cigarettes. Um, you know, have increasingly less tolerance for people who have bad habits, and then, you know, blame the world for them. So there's the environment that you should become responsible and aware of in terms of what how you're engaging it, how you're supporting it. And maybe you're not engaging enough. Maybe you're not taking enough role in your family or your community or your own creative juices. Maybe you're not rewarding yourself enough. Okay. Then there's the um mental habits and inclinations. So people don't realize that a lot of what they see is what they've learned to see. What they hear, what they've learned to attune to, how they react. So you can become a calmer person. And it will help in many regards. Just like I said, you should turn around and look behind you. You should be able to turn around and reflect on your condition and your feeling without being, you know, held by your throat against the wall of immediate consequences. You should have some mental space. You should have a slower frequency, you should have a more focused, I'm using it metaphorically, more focused frequency. And to some extent, there are literal frequencies that you can learn to train in your brain. Now, nobody's quite sure whether the frequencies actually correspond to your ability to remember, but it seems to be a good metaphor. You know, gaining balance physically helps you to gain balance mentally. Learning to control your brain and moderate your brain. And here's the easiest thing to actually learn is cardiovascular balance, heart rate variability, learning to breathe and moderate your pulse is quite easy to learn and can be very helpful, especially people who are very dysregulated and have a problem coordinating their pulse in their breath. So that's simple biofeedback and neurofeedback is similar to the brain, learning to control your brain waves in certain regards, calms your life, broadens your vision, and makes you more attentive and responsive in ways that you were otherwise too distracted. So the final area, the three were the external world and the internal habits, and then the final area is your memories and what triggers you and your personality. Are you needy? Are you generous? Are you loving? I often ask my clients, what is love to you? Because I know no two people would have the same answer, and most people don't even think about it because it's impossible to answer. And one of my failures as a partner is I didn't ask it, I assumed it. You know, I had that mountaineering attitude. You know, this is the summit, we're all going for it. Marriage, family, happiness, we're all on board. But different peoples have wildly different views, or no views at all, because no one's asked them. So this is sort of what I do as a therapist. Like, what are your ideas? And then what are the underneath your ideas? What do you dream about? And you think the dreams don't make any sense. I I don't find dreams to be nonsensical. Well, they're chaotic and they deal with nonsense, but the things they deal with are all, you know, these constructions of the real world. They're spooky in how realistic they seem. And then you just believe them, of course, but they're all on a sort of nonfiction stage with real people and things you really believe. You know, I really do think that that bear in my dream was talking to me. I had no doubt. Well, what was it saying? Oh, uh there's this great story of a guy who it was actually quoted in some book, a guy who was having a repeated dream about being chased by a big hairy monster, and he finally gets to the point where he stops and he turns around and he faces it, and he realizes he has to confront his fear, and the monster stops and says to him, You have to be more precise about what you're feeling. And it's like, you know, what okay, what are you afraid of? How does this manifest? And and why don't you recognize it? So these are like subconscious things, you know, we get to with psychedelics, right? The things like, you know, you see the infinite universe. Well, yeah, and how much of it do you remember? And did it happen to look like a big fat lady with a polka dot dress? You know, let's unpack this stuff. So those are the three levels. And this is how sort of therapy goes.

Best Life Means Less Comfort

Peter Kolakovic 56:42

Okay, thank you. Uh, that was a really, really fascinating answer. There's so many more questions I would love to ask you, but it seems that we've we've come to the end of our time together. And it's so uh so I have just one more question for you, and it's the same question that I asked all of my guests. You've lived a really fascinating life full of full of adventure and mistakes. Well, we all have those. We all have those. I certainly have my share. What does it mean to you to live your best life?

SPEAKER_02 57:26

To make full use of my time and not be too comfortable. That's the most controversial thing I would say. That I don't really believe in comfort. I like it But it's sort of stultifying But there I think learning is not comfortable. It's just not. All all of my creative acts and earth-shaking inspirations are met with conflict and confrontation. But I know they're the right things, and they they do give me a greater sense of life. And I have to do them. But I'm trying to squirm out of the uncomfortable aspects. You know, that's the boundaries, discernment. And you don't learn either of those things unless they're tested.

Peter Kolakovic 58:25

Amen to that. Lincoln Stoller, thanks very much for joining me on the podcast today. I've really enjoyed this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 58:33

Yeah, we covered a lot of stuff, I hope. And if you if you want to get deeper into any of them, we missed a lot of stuff too. We can.

Peter Kolakovic 58:41

Wonderful. Okay, thanks again, Lincoln.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

You're welcome.