Life’s Twin Peaks: Navigating the Cycles of Light and Dark

In this episode, Justin dives into the importance of balance in all areas of life. 

Drawing inspiration from Goldilocks, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, and electrical engineering, Justin explores how embracing the contrasts in life—light and dark, joy and sorrow—leads to fulfillment and growth. 

Learn why balance isn’t about perfection, but about finding your “just right” through cycles of self-discovery and transformation.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• The wisdom of Goldilocks and how it applies to living a balanced life.
• Insights into how emotions like grief, joy, and longing are interconnected.
• The science of electricity and how it reflects human energy cycles.
• The dangers of avoiding discomfort and the power of leaning into the unfamiliar.
• Practical tips for integrating balance into your daily life for greater fulfillment.

Key Takeaways:

• True growth requires alternating between comfort and challenge, light and dark.
• Emotions you avoid might hold the key to your deepest desires.
• Balance is dynamic—it’s about ongoing adjustment, not achieving perfection.
• Small steps toward balance can lead to transformative results in health, relationships, and careers.

Watch the full video episode at Justin Wenck, Ph.D. YouTube Channel!

Check out my best-selling book "Engineered to Love: Going Beyond Success to Fulfillment" also available on Audiobook on all streaming platforms! Go to https://www.engineeredtolove.com/ to learn more!

Got a question or comment about the show? E-mail me at podcast@justinwenck.com.

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Transcript

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Either one is necessarily better or worse. It's when you get okay with that. They're all important. They're all part of the cycle of your life, just like it's the cycle of AC current flowing over a power line, just like it's the balance in the movie, in the story, between like, the boring, the name, the whatever, with the the tension, the height and the suspense that all of that leads to the beautiful mystery that we get to experience and go through. Are you ready to live a life with enough time, money and energy have relationships and connections that delight you? Are you ready for the extraordinary life you know you've been missing? If so, then this is the place for you. I'm a best selling author, coach, consultant and speaker who's worked in technology for over two decades. I'm a leader at transforming people and organizations from operating in fear, obligation and guilt to running off joy, ease and love. It's time for engineering emotions and energy with me. Justin Wenck PhD, today, I'm going to be talking about Goldilocks. Why Goldilocks? Because she knew the importance of something being not too hot, not too cold, not too hard, not too soft, but being just right, and how this is very important to living a long and joyful and productive and happy life. I've been noticing a lot. I've seen in my life. I've seen in other people's lives. There's a lot going on. It's a it's storming today. There's a fire engine just cruising around. I live near the ocean, so it's kind of interesting. A giant fire engine go by the little, teeny road that goes by the ocean. But even even this giant storm which came through, it's still still going on, it knocked out my power for about a couple hours. I was prepared. I had a backup battery generator. So because I've had power outages that have lasted, you know, day day and a half here, which I know in some parts of the US, some parts of the world, they'd be like, I wish I only had, you know, a day and a half power outage. But you know, one of the reasons I love living where I live is because there's balance where I used to live, which was in the Sacramento area of California, in the summer, it pretty much just be fucking hot, and in the winter, it would just be fucking cold. Where I live now, it's often neither too hot or too cold. Some days it's sunny, some days it's cloudy, and some days there's some clouds, and then some days there's some sun. There's balance. I love it. There's balance, as opposed to too much of one thing, not enough of the other. And I found this in my life, and I've seen this with lots of people, where often they're focusing and rightly so. I'm not saying don't focus on it, don't want it, but that happiness, oh, I want happiness. Or I want money. I want abundance, or I want prestige. And the thing is that it's not about not having those things. It's about having them and having what is also not them. Because if we focus too much on what we don't have, we end up being out of balance and actually just having more of what we don't have some of I've talked about this before. Many of you have experienced this where the things that you you want now you've wanted for a long time, and part of that is because you haven't been the person that has come into the right balance to actually have what you want while also having not having it, or being okay with not having it, so that you can actually go and to have it. Because when we're so attached to something, it becomes, it becomes almost debilitating, or it becomes its own thing, in it of itself. And I've been really getting into some David Lynch stuff. If you're not familiar with David Lynch, been around since, I think the early, early, mid 80s. A couple things he's really famous for is, he's really famous for Twin Peaks, which was a show that aired in on ABC like prime time. Late prime time is about to Smith the mystery of who killed Laura Palmer. And then he's also known for another show called another movie, which was supposed to be a show kind of like Twin Peaks, but didn't, so just became a movie Mulholland Drive. And the thing that David Lynch is always trying to get through in his works. At least my understanding is this concept of balance, like this murder mystery of Twin Peaks and Laura Palmer. It was, it was a mix of everything. Nothing had ever been like it on TV before, and it almost be one of those things, like, if you saw it now, it's still good, but you might also go like, well, this isn't anything new. I mean, this is a murder mystery, but like, zaniness and apple pie, actually, it's cherry pie and coffee. What's, what's the big deal? But at the time, it was there to bring balance to television, because it used to just be that there would just be this profanity of basically consumable violence on. On TV. And what Twin Peaks did was it's like, you're gonna have some of that, but we're also gonna have some of the mundanity of day to day life in this small, little mountain town of a diner where there's just simple cherry pie and coffee and people getting together and showing love. But then that's also gonna be balanced with the CD underbelly that's going on, the drugs and this show even had prostitution and murder and all sorts of stuff. And the point of it was that it really is the balance, the back and forth between, sort of the dark and the light. And we as humans, we are also meant to, sort of like, go back and forth between the, you know, the the feelings of joy, satisfaction, ease, love, and then you know, also, there's the there's an importance to acknowledge and experience, the fear, the sadness, the grief, the loss, the longing, right, the anger, the rage. Like these are, you know, these are two sides of the same coin. If you don't have the other side. You're actually not even getting the coin. And as humans, we're electrical beings. And my background is electrical engineering, and it, you know, it's really things are not static in most in most electrical systems, even though it's sort of interesting, a lot of the devices we use, they use DC Direct Current supplies, where it's just, it's a steady voltage, and then however much, you know, the voltage doesn't vary. Yet, our bodies, you know, what's an easy EKG or an electrocepha that's showing the variations in the various voltages going on through our human system. And when we're talking about sharing big amounts of power across large distances, how is it done with AC alternating current, current that isn't just one voltage, it changes with time. That changing with time allows large, large amounts of power to go long distances. And so when we as humans tap into because there's these, there's many principles of the universe, but one of my favorites is as above, so below, as within, so without, which means that we see, we see rhymes or reflections in things at various levels, where we see that how something is outside is also happening inside. So if we see that, oh, large amounts of power conveyed through AC voltage and current. And how am I living my life? Am I allowing there to be alternation between light and dark, positive and negative and with Twin Peaks? Where this comes in is, if you take a take alternating current that goes through a cycle of light and a cycle of dark, what you end up getting if you rectify that, meaning that you only allow the positive right? And I'll see if we can get some graphics here to show this. I pulled some that you basically get. You will get two peaks, Twin Peaks. That Twin Peaks is there to show the two phases of alternating current, which is a complete cycle of alternating current. And we are here to live in complete cycles where we experience not just the sunny, gorgeous days, but the cloudy, rainy, the powers out, things like that, because that allows us to have the contrast and of and the experience the joy of life, which might include I've been experienced this more and more where it's like, oh my gosh, I've I'm so sad that I've lost this relationship, or that this isn't going for me yet, it shows that there's something I care about, something I want, and being able to find the joy in that. And so Goldilocks, she really did have something going there, because it wasn't that. Yes, she knew, she knew the middle way. But she also didn't avoid trying things. She was open to trying something that was a little too hard, trying something that was a little too soft, yet she realized that it was the middle, the middle way, which is often for those that have studied, you know, the Buddhism the Buddha, one of his great teachings was this concept of the Middle Way, not too much, not too little. And I got to kind of experience, you know, sort of this, this middle path at a recent workshop that was ended up being just phenomenal, where I had such great opportunities to meet some great people, but also to you, you know, say what I want, say what I don't want to go I've had enough of this, or give me more of that. And it was awesome. The the last, the last they were, what were they calling them? Section? Was it calling them? Sections? System, structure, the last structure, last structure we did, or exercise. There was, there was an element of, there were three three groups, and three people got to choose which they needed to choose which group they would be a part of. And so, you know, who are they going to partner with? And basically they, so there's three groups and three people. And you. For me, they took us and they said, okay, one of you is going to have complete choice. The other it's going to be up to destiny, and the other one's going to be a little in between, which means somebody gets to choose first, somebody goes second, somebody goes third, somebody immediately was like, I want to go last. Somebody else is like, I want to go first. And I was like, I want to go first. And then the facilitator is like, well, now we just kind of like, see, you know who feels into they're okay with going second. And I knew that I was okay being middle. I knew it would work out for me. And so the first person goes out, gets their group, and so now there's only two groups left, and I go out and I see what was group one, and that's already taken. And these other two groups, and I'm like, the group that I want, that I is even better than I could have imagined, is here, and it ended up being a great, a great, great exercise. Great, great end of the workshop. Great, great connection, great use of my voice. It was just a great experience, this, this workshop, but to just kind of like that, that middle way, that like I don't need to have, I don't need to have full choice necessarily, and I also don't need to completely leave it up to chance having a little bit and this is what life often is, where we don't actually know everything. We'll never get to know everything. Will not never have perfect information. Yet. We do some things, and we have agency. We do have choice. So allowing that simultaneous like, I'm going to choose, but I'm also going to be open to that some stuff isn't up to me, and often that what isn't up to us has a big thing to do with timing, where it's like, you don't know exactly when you're going to get what you want, but it's important to put out what you want, because you're likely going to get it at some point. And if you don't know what you want, that's one of the things to work with. And if you're not, if you do know what you want, but you're not getting it, that's when it's time to be pay attention to the feedback, because again, maybe you're out of balance. You're not looking at you're not acknowledging the things that need to be acknowledged. You're focusing too far on one end and not not the other. Neither one is necessarily better or worse. It's when you get okay with that. They're all important. They're all part of the cycle of your life, just like it's the cycle of of AC current flowing over a power line, just like it's the balance in the in the movie, in the story, between like the boring, the name, the whatever, with the the tension, the height and the suspense that all of that leads to the beautiful mystery that we get to experience and go through. So with that, I'm going to wrap this up. And thank you so much, and encourage you to look for ways that you can find balance. How can you let your own little inner Goldilocks come out and look for balance? What's something that you've been avoiding? And maybe it's time to, like, lean into and you don't have to lean into this stuff alone. That's where, you know, coaches like me, other coaches out there, therapists, friends, that if we're open to the balance. It's out there waiting because our body is in balance while we're alive, and so we're meant to do more balance. Yeah, sometimes there's coughing, sometimes there's not sometimes there's tears, but not necessarily tears of sorrow, sometimes tears of joy, or sometimes just tears of the body having a response that it needs to have. Either way, I encourage you to be open to what is instead of trying to push away one to make sure you get the other, look at maybe what you're avoiding, because what you're avoiding likely is on the path to what it is that you truly want, which is going to be that joy, that ease, that love that you can have that you deserve just because you're you, and you can have it just because you want it, but you are going to it is going to require looking at the full cycle of human experience. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. It can be an amazing thing, but it is something that is going to be different, and different can sometimes just be difficult, only at first. It gets better and better, little by little. The middle way becomes useful. And just like a tree when it's growing up and sprouts, one shoot gets a little out another spot, another goes a little bit. It's back and forth. It's alternating. And it's how growth works. We see it in nature. We see it in our bodies, and when we start to allow this in our life, our life can happen in amazing, fantastical ways, and it's going to impact our business, it's going to impact our relationships, it's going to impact our health. And I want that amazing, beneficial impact for you. So if you got any questions, let me know. Send some messages over on the social media or through the email, which is going to come up. Love to hear what you think, what's an area of your life where you could find some more balance? Yeah, and balance doesn't necessarily just mean all the good, but giving some space to maybe some stuff that needs to be looked at that you've been avoiding. So let me know. I'd love to hear with that. Thank you and you. Good day. Thanks for tuning in to engineering emotions and energy with Justin Wenck PhD, today's episode resonated with you. Please subscribe and leave a five star review. Your feedback not only supports the show, but also helps others find us and start their journey of emotional and energetic mastery. You can also help by sharing this podcast with someone you think will love it just as much as you do together, we're engineering more amazing lives you.