Finding sacred relationships in a world that breaks your heart with Adam Guzman Poole

080 We live in the most prosperous and technologically advanced society in human history, yet for so many people happiness feels as elusive as a daytime star.  The many comforts and conveniences we take for granted in the West often come at a hidden cost to our connection to the human family and the greater web of life. From the loneliness epidemic to the opioid crisis to endless foreign wars, many of the urgent issues of the day flow from a fundamental breakdown of once sacred relationships.

In this conversation I speak with Adam Guzman-Poole, a relationship coach, logotherapist, and author of Lessons in Love, about the stark contrast between Occidental ways of knowing and being in relationship and the heart-based worldview of Indigenous and Eastern spiritual traditions.  As a resident of Bali, Adam also shares his experience of the Balinese secret to a love filled life, known as Tri Hita Karana, or the three causes of happiness.

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Transcript

Prosperity And A Missing Sacred Bond

Silas Rose 0:00

Hello friends, my name is Silas Rose, and this is Awake in Relationship. We live in the most prosperous and advanced society in human history. Yet, for so many of us, the secret to happiness is as elusive as a daytime star. Many of the comforts and conveniences we take for granted here in the West come at a cost to our connection, to the human family, and the greater web of life. From the loneliness epidemic to the opioid crisis, to endless foreign wars. Many of the urgent issues that we are witnessing today flow from a breakdown of a relationship with the sacred. In this episode, I speak with Adam Guzman Poole, a relationship coach, logotherapist, and author of lessons on Love, sacred stories, on relationships, balance, and becoming your authentic self. Adam spent close to two decades studying with indigenous elders in North and South America and Asia, learning about the view and practice of sacred relationships. In this conversation, we talk about the contrast between the occidental and traditional ways of knowing and how we see the world, shapes our relationships. We also discuss logotherapy in Victor Frankl's work on transforming trauma and the power of choice. As a current resident of Bali, Adam shares his experience of the Balinese Secret to a love filled life called Tri Hitta Karana, otherwise known as the Three Causes of Happiness. Stay tuned.

Adam Guzman-Poole 2:49

Thank you so much. Such an honor to be here. Thanks for having me, Silas.

Meet Adam And Lessons On Love

Silas Rose 2:55

So for my audience, I wonder if you can introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what you do, and the book you just came out with.

Adam Guzman-Poole 3:04

Yeah, so um I am uh a spiritual therapist and a relationship counselor and coach. And um yeah, help people find more love, joy, peace in their relationships, whether that be with themselves, with their partner, or with their connection to you know something sacred, the divine, whatever you want to call that energy that we are all part of.

Silas Rose 3:33

So you wrote this book, Lessons on Love, and uh you know you share quite intimately some personal stories to kind of illustrate different lessons. I wonder if there's one story in particular that kind of speaks to the beginning of your journey to understand the nature of love.

Looking For Love in all the wrong places

Silas Rose 3:54 Adam Guzman-Poole 3:54

Well, I think like many great things it came from pain. And uh I think you know, there's uh um I'm really getting the image of uh alchemy is turning coal into gold. And so in my upbringing, I actually dealt with a lot of lack of love, right? I I had a lot of self-animosity, a lot of um overly critical tendencies, some perfectionist tendencies, and um that led me to you know some not so supportive paths. You know, when I was younger, I was a little bit of uh uh you know, a troublesome kid, and I was looking for love through substances, I was looking for connection there. And when I, you know, maybe dropped that and I went to a little bit more of our uh, I guess, approved of love in our society, which was looking through it, through achievements. You know, how what what did I do? How much money did I make? How did I look? I was looking, but at the end of the day, I was looking for love outside of myself rather than within myself. And so um that uh, you know, that and we all know that doesn't that doesn't lead to anywhere good, right? And it leads to emptiness, right? Because we we want to be full. So for me, that was really the, you know, through that pain, it it brought me within, you know, and brought me within. And uh I met many uh beautiful teachers, spiritual teachers along the way that guided me back to that truth within myself. And I mean, we have lots to talk about in that, and I I can share more about that soon, but that's sort of like the beginning.

Silas Rose 5:44

So in that kind of dark night, was there a particular kind of person or relationship that sort of pulled you out by grace?

Being Seen By An Elder

Adam Guzman-Poole 5:54

I encountered uh an indigenous medicine woman in the Algonquin territory of um uh over in Ottawa, and she uh really took me in and she saw me, you know, she saw past the you know what others may have judged me as, and she really and it was through that seeing, right? And that really seeing someone is an act of love, right? And to see past the conditions, past whatever they're doing and at the core who they truly are. And when she was able to see me, I was able to see myself as well, right? And she was able to guide me and connect me to that source, and that really um kind of led me down a 20-year apprenticeship studying with different indigenous teachers, both in North and South America, as well as different Buddhist teachers, yogic teachers. Um yeah, for the past 20 years, and that was really but it was that one person, right? And that one moment and act of love that can um that really you know changed the changed the trajectory of my life.

We Are All Related

Silas Rose 7:02

I know within indigenous cultures there is this notion or or core teaching around right relationship or being in right relationship.

Adam Guzman-Poole 7:14

Yeah, I'm so you know, forever blessed to all the elders who um won all the the sacrifices that they made to you know uphold and keep those teachings, particularly in uh places like Canada where you know colonialism tried to suffocate it. So I I give my utmost gratitude, particularly to one of my teachers, Leonard Dayrider, uh blackfoot elder, the Alberta Territory, who also studied a lot with the Lakota, and the Lakota have this idea, is Mitakuyasan, which means, you know, we are all related. You and I are all part of the same stuff. So there's something really, you know, powerful in this phrase, you know, we are all related. It's actually the epigraph to my book, Mitakuyasan, you know, for all my relations. You know, we're doing this for all our relationships. So if you imagine you go into a traditional healing lodge, a sweat lodge in um in uh the northern is northern, they also have it in South America as well. Tema scale, it's a little bit different. But traditional healing lodge, you would go in and before you go into the lodge, you know, you it's very common to, you know, put your head on the ground in humility, you know, in humility and and to say, Mitaguiasan, you know. I'm doing this, you know, you're so this this idea that I'm I'm going in and I'm going for healing, yes, personal healing, but I'm also going for familial healing, community healing. I'm also going in for healing my ancestors as well, and then the ancestors to come. So it's this idea that we are all related, and we're also related to the earth. We're related to the stars, the you know, the creatures, like we are all part of the same stuff. All right. And this is, you know, this is um an indigenous teaching, you know, and it's also you know uh a universal teaching. You know, Ubuntu uh speaks about this uh in you know Southern Africa, which means I thrive because you thrive. You know, we are all, you know, we are a part of the community. It's not, it doesn't start with the individual, it starts with the community. It starts with the whole realizing that we are interconnected. This is something that I um I found in in the north, in the teachings of the north, but I also experienced it when I was living in the Amazon jungle for three years, doing an apprenticeship with the traditional Shipibo people there. And I was with a healer there and he was telling me about the root cause of sickness. You know, they you know they're they they they heal all every type of sickness there is, not just physical sickness, right? So when people came came with cancer, they would come heal them. When people came with um depression, they'd come heal them. Marital problems, they'd come heal them. You know, the all go-to doctor, it's a very long apprenticeship. And so he said that the cause, the cause of all illness came from not being in the right relationship. So it's like when you think of that, it's like this is more than just a relationship with you know one other person. It's like, how do you relate with everything? So if you are not relating with yourself well, then there's more likely that you're gonna put a lot of stress on your body, you know, then that stress is gonna manifest into toxic chemicals. Those toxic chemicals can create cancerous uh cells, and so the cycle goes on. All right. And so when we're in right relationship, you know, we begin to heal those things. And so really healing comes back to relationships because it's all like how you relate to one thing is how you relate to everything, is the old Buddhist saying, you know, how you do one thing is how you do everything. And so how are we relating to ourselves? How are we relating to the earth? How are we relating to um you know our community, our our loved ones, and and it all impacts one another?

Bali And The Value Of Connection

Silas Rose 11:34

I'm really want to kind of explore the contrast between east and west, because you know you live in Bali right now and you're very much a global citizen. You've lived in a lot of places, but Bali in as a bit of a reputation as being a place of love. I think uh Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote in Eat PRay L ove, when she was focusing on writing about love, she was talking about Bali. What in that culture, have you discovered that just seems to be kind of absent here in the West?

Adam Guzman-Poole 12:20

Western thought and Western philosophy kind of roots from Descartes' thinking, right? Thinking of I am, you know, I think therefore I am. And he's looking at himself as an isolated individual in this energy of thought, right? So it doesn't really matter what's outside, right? But you know, a lot of cultures around the world actually bring in the community, right? They bring in this aspect that we are all together. So in Bali, I think I I told you this story when we when we first met, and uh I'm gonna tell it for our listeners because it's a perfect example of um what the Balinese culture is like and when it when it uh in in contrast to the Western culture. I volunteer in this permaculture garden. And uh I was there with an Australian volunteer, and we were there to building this living fence. Where and a living fence is, you know, it's kind of if you aren't familiar with permaculture, it's basically um a fence made out of plants. It's kind of amazing, and made out of trees, and it builds and grows, and you kind of instruct the plants to go it their own way. So me and this Australian were there and we're plowing away, building the fence, and we were just about done. Like in 20 minutes, we would have finished the fence, right? And then out of nowhere, we hear uh this uh we hear Kadek, which is the the owner of the permaculture garden. He's a Balinese guy, and he he goes, Coffee, which coffee in in Bahasa, Indonesia. And uh her the Australian woman and I look at each other, and then we look at the end, hear his voice, and we're like, uh, and we just keep going. We keep just plowing away, you know, very western. Let's just keep going. And then we hear again, copy. And he's like, We're we're almost done. We shout back and we keep plowing away, keep plowing away. And then about a minute or two later, he says, Come now. Goodek yells at us. And we're like, okay, okay. You know, we we let it go, we leave it, and then we go and we have coffee with him. There's these like beautiful little sweets like that are in uh rice paper and they're delicious, and we're sitting and just enjoying and just connecting, right? We're having a conversation about, you know, we're talking about the land, we're talking about you know, the Balinese culture, we're talking about you know a YouTube channel, like everything and nothing at the exact same time, and we're just connecting, we're just relating. And shortly after that, about 20 minutes later, you know, uh the Australian woman says, Okay, well, I gotta go. I, you know, we have to take my son to the library today, and we'll see you guys later, you know. And then she left. And then shortly after that, uh, like one minute later, Cadek gets a call on his phone and he's like, Oh, that's my son. You know, he I I'm gonna go be with him right now, and uh, I'll see you later. And so then there I was, and then I started like about to walk away, and as I was walking away, leaving the permaculture garden, I was looking at the you know, the the 20 minutes left of the of the fence, and I thought, huh. Well, that's not done, but something so much more was received, right? There was something so much more received. And I think that's the thing, it's like there is the value of relationships. And I think in the West, it's not we're too focused on our to-dos, right? We're focused on our to-dos. And when we're too focused on our to-dos, and I know you're you're you're practicing mindfulness, right? You're you're practicing Buddhist, and and you know that you know, like life happens in this present moment and what not when we're running to the future. So uh I think that's something that uh I've noticed a lot in in Bali and a lot of different Eastern cultures that I've visited as well.

Tri Hita Karana Three Causes

Silas Rose 16:46

When we first connected, uh you talked about a particular kind of formula to happiness found there.

Adam Guzman-Poole 16:55

Yeah, this is uh yeah, so this is uh it's a beautiful Balinese concept. And so the tri hita karana, it's the three pathways to happiness or the three pathways to abundance and well-being. The first pathway is our relationship to the divine, the sacred, something bigger than ourselves, right? And we have to have that sort of relationship, and that will bring us peace, right? And the second pathway to happiness is our relationship to others, to human beings, right? Well, relationships are actually one of our greatest things of joy with in other individuals, but they're actually the greatest cause of stress and emotional distress in our entire lives, bigger than financial stress, bigger than um physical distress. It's like when we're not in harmony with those around us, you know, we're not happy, right? So that's one of the pathways to well-being. And the third pathway to well-being, uh, which lines up with a lot of indigenous philosophies as well, and that's our our relationship to the nature, the natural world, because they don't see it as separate, right? We say we're part of this earth, and this earth gives to us. And if we're we're not in harmony with nature, well, we see what happens, right? We look at the world right now that is not in harmony with nature, and we see we're starting to see these um, you know, these freak floods, these freak, you know, ice storms, and the the climate is changing um quite dramatically, and that's from not being in the right relationship. And and I want to jump back to that relationship with the divine again, because I think there's something there that's also missing in the West, right? We live in such a material world where we're always holding on to something. But when we forget that we are part of something greater than ourselves, that we don't belong, like, where do we belong? Right. It's like just me against the world, right? But when you can just lean into that, wow, I'm actually part of something sacred. You know, there's something that I can lean on. And I believe it was uh, you know, Tara Brock, uh amazing Buddhist teacher, uh psychologist. She also uh spoke about this this belonging to something bigger than ourselves, that we can soften, that we can heal.

Logotherapy Meaning And Choice

Silas Rose 19:25

So you touched on that we are really living in a challenging time, especially with a lot of broken relationships. You studied uh the work of Victor Frankel and and u logotherapy in your practice. I'm wondering how his ideas have kind of influenced how you work with people and helped them to kind of reconnect with a sense of sacredness in the world.

Adam Guzman-Poole 19:56

For those of you that don't know, it's logotherapy means healing through meaning. How do you heal through meaning? And Victor Frankel was an uh you know uh an exceptional individual who found meaning in a place where people would think, you know, there's no meaning here, a concentration can't. So when he was uh a young practicing doctor, he got thrown into the concentration camp, and he started using this practice. He said, Well, okay, how can I use this as an opportunity for my growth? And it was in that space that he found meaning in the most detrimental place. How he did that is it is a beautiful philosophy, and it's actually a paradigm shift that um I like to offer a lot of the folks that I work with, and it's just like because when you think what is a paradigm, it's like how what how are you looking at the world? Right. And when you shift your paradigm, your whole world shifts. What I like to offer is this paradigm shift that Viktor Frankel has, and it's that life is essentially meaningful. You know, so when we believe that life is essentially meaningful, then the way that we respond to life changes completely because life isn't against us. Life is there for us. So if there is a challenge, that challenge is actually there inviting us to grow. So you talked about, you know, the broken list. You talked about the broken relationships. So when we're looking at a break-in relationship, I'll give you an example of uh a client of mine which you know is working with a break, a broken relationship with their daughter, right? And this broken relationship, you know, has caused a lot of stress, a lot of overwhelm. You know, like we talked about, like relationships can cause a lot of distress, especially there's someone you love, someone you care. About and you're seeing this distress right now. When when we look at it just as a challenge, it can feel overwhelmed. I can feel like, oh no, what do I do? But when we step into it, like this is actually an invitation for me to grow. This is life. This is, you know, the divine, you could even say, is inviting me to step into my best self. Now, Victor Frankel in the logotherapy has three ways to find meaning in life, right? And three sort of universal pathways that he said there are three values that we can do to find whatever situation we can find meaning. The first is creative. Now, a creative is more purposeful. It's more acting on the world. So for uh this individual, they you know got really serious. They said, okay, what can I do to bring peace? What can I do to bring harmony, love into this relationship? And they they took responsibility rather than just letting it kind of overwhelm them. They took responsibility. Like, how do I have agency? And the minute that we take agency, the minute we find our power, right? And then that then there's this sense of, ah, okay, I can I can do this, right? Now, so that's one way is like stepping into the creative. The other, which is really uh beautiful because it's a really about it's experiential. So this is about uh receiving the love from life, right? So one of so if you could think of like the creative as an exhale, like it's like kind of like giving. The the creative, the experiential is like embracing, receiving from life, you know, finding meaning, you know, talking about the brokenness in the world, we can find meaning just by you know appreciating nature, receiving its gift, spending time with somebody and being with somebody and receiving their presence, taking away, you know, those little devices that we keep in our pockets all the time, maybe putting that away for a second so that we can really receive someone, you know. So just being present with someone, that's one way we can really find uh love. Because the love is right here. Here's the thing that's the truth. Like it's right here. Everywhere you look, life is giving to you. The sun is shining on you. If it's raining, hey, you're getting rain. No matter whether you want it or not, you're receiving something, right? And you get flowers from the rain. And so that's the next part is uh the attitudinal. And the attitudinal is probably the most profound yet the hardest to do. And attitudinal is about finding meaning in the face of unavoidable suffering. See, you know, life is is is um is filled with challenges. There will be rain. There will be many day days that life will want to rain on your parade. But we have agency to decide how we respond in the face of these challenges, even if we can't do anything. So there are moments, you know, right, like when you know you may do your best to support a relationship. You may do your best to uh try to bring uh something into harmony. And at the same time, you may not get anything back. That's gonna hurt. Can you still find resilience within yourself? Can you still find patience, love, understanding for that person and using that opportunity to help you grow? And when we believe that life is essentially meaningful, when we have that paradigm shift, then it's a lot easier to find that because you're using this this uh this challenge to just bring out the best in you, to bring out the best in our human potential. Because that at our at the core, you know, we are you know we are love.

Metta Meditation For Daily Love

Silas Rose 26:18

From the listener that might be feeling the heartbreak of the world right now, is there a simple practice you would you can leave us with for remembering love or bringing love into daily life?

Adam Guzman-Poole 26:30

You know, Victor Frankel, so who we just spoke about said between the stimulus and the response, there is a space, and in that space is our freedom, right? So if we break that down, it's like between the the challenges that you know come our way, we have we have agency to choose what how we're gonna respond. You know, it really is a choice. That's our power. We have responsibility. And he talked about responding, our ability to respond to life's moment. Now, in order to respond wisely and well to the moment, I cannot say enough about the power of meditation, right? Now, meditation helps uh actually grow, like neuroscience shows that it actually can grow that space between stimulus and response. You know, we can have a challenging situation happen to us, and it gives us spaciousness around that challenging situation and not to go on automatic thoughts. We can actually decide and choose how to respond in those moments. So the first thing I'd say is like meditate. Like I cannot say enough about it. You know, it will change your life, it'll make you happier, healthier, and wiser. And I want to give a specific meditation uh that is actually really, really useful. And uh it comes from the Buddhist tradition. And before I tell what it is, I want to give a a little story to just kind of highlight it. And uh it happened when some of Buddha's senior monks were asked to go into the forest to um, you know, do a deep retreat. They were going to be there for many months to just go really deep. And so they went into the forest and they started meditating. Now there was a lot of forest spirits in there that didn't like that they were there. They were like, what are these guys doing? So they started to spook them and scare them away and like became kind of demonic and scared them away. And these guys were so afraid, they just like ran right back to the Buddha, you know, their tails between their legs. And the Buddha said, Okay, go back, but take this. And he gave them this practice. And it was the practice of metta, which is the practice of love and kindness. So the Buddhist monks went back to their their little spots in the woods, and the forest demons started to come towards them, and then they started practicing this practice, and and and the practice goes like this you start off with yourself, may I be filled with loving kindness, may I be held in loving kindness, may I be happy, you know, and you continue on like that, and you say, and then you extend that out. May you know the forest beings be filled with loving kindness, may they be held in loving kindness, may they be happy. And you start off, you go, and they went again and again until they were radiating so much peace, so much love that the spirits just came to them and they started offering them gifts because they were making the place so beautiful. Now, if we're feeling hard in this world, we can be those bright, loving beings that actually transform the world of Ryaness.

Where To Find The Book

Silas Rose 30:14

Well, it's a great place to land. Thank you so much, Adam, for this conversation. If people want to get your book or learn more about uh you and your work, where can they go?

Adam Guzman-Poole 30:25

I think the best way to find me is lessons on love. So lessonson love.org slash gift. So lessonsonlove.org slash gift. And that is um like it's uh five transformational stories from my book that will just really bring more love into your life. So uh find me there. And uh yeah, I'd love to connect.

Silas Rose 30:53

If you want to connect more with Adam's work, head over to lessonsonlove.org. I'll be sure to put some links in the show notes at awakenrelationship.com. If you've been enjoying the content here at Awakened Relationship, I'd really appreciate a quick review on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. I can sometimes be found on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Substack. Send me a message and let me know what you think of the show. If you've made it this far, dear listener, thank you so much for lending me your ears. Till next time, stay connected.

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