Dhru Purohit Show - #211: Break Free of People-Pleasing and FOMO with Diego Perez

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

Break Free of People-Pleasing and FOMO with Diego Perez | This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market and Birch Living. How we feel physically, mentally, and emotionally dictates how well we show up in our lives. So often, these areas get seen as separate, when doing inner work can actually lead to some profound outer changes. Today’s guest on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Diego Perez, shares insights on cultivating self-awareness in a time of otherness and how a good relationship with ourselves ripples out to benefit the rest of the world.  Diego is a meditator, writer, and speaker who is widely known on Instagram and various social media networks through his pen name Yung Pueblo. Online he has an audience of over a million people that he reaches through his written works that focus on the reality of self-healing, the movement from self-love to unconditional love, and the wisdom that comes when we truly work on knowing ourselves. His first book, Inward, quickly became a bestseller. His second book, Clarity & Connection was just released   In this episode, we dive into:  -The importance of radical honesty (3:39)  -How to make the world a more compassionate place (13:16) -The mental health crisis (21:04)  -Why it’s harder to heal trauma when it becomes a part of your identity (27:18)  -The importance of giving space and supporting freedom in a relationship (34:22)  -Perfectionism and overcoming people-pleasing (44:10)  -Being okay with not getting what you want (49:07)  -How to break free from unhealthy patterns and behaviors (51:21)  -How to deal with FOMO (54:47) -The essentials for growth (1:05:44)  -Diego’s meditation practice (1:11:11) Also mentioned in this episode: -Breaking Free From Your Ego and Unleashing Your Brain’s Creativity - https://drhyman.com/blog/2020/06/04/bb-ep120/ -The ONE Thing, by Gary Keller - https://www.the1thing.com/shop/the-one-thing/-book -Alan Watts - https://alanwatts.org/ For more on Diego Perez you can follow him on Instagram @yung_pueblo, and through his website https://yungpueblo.com/. Get his book, Before: Clarity & Connection at https://amzn.to/3eSOO4J.  For more on Dhru Purohit, be sure to follow him on Instagram @dhrupurohit, on Facebook @dhruxpurohit, on Twitter @dhrupurohit, and on YouTube @dhrupurohit. You can also text Dhru at [phone] or click here https://my.community.com/dhrupurohit. Interested in joining The Dhru Purohit Podcast Facebook Community? Submit your request to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2819627591487473/. This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market and Birch Living. Thrive Market makes it so easy to stay stocked with healthy ingredients. Right now, Thrive is offering all my listeners an amazing deal. When you sign up for a new membership, you will receive a free gift. And, any time you spend more than $49, you’ll get free carbon-neutral shipping from one of their zero-waste warehouses. Go to thrivemarket.com/dhru to sign-up. I recently upgraded to a Birch mattress by Helix. The Birch is made right here in the US, out of 4 non-toxic, natural materials: organic latex, organic cotton, New Zealand wool, and American steel springs. If you’re looking for a new mattress, I highly recommend checking out the Birch. Right now they are giving my community $200 off all mattresses, plus 2 free eco-rest pillows. Just head over to https://birchliving.com/dhru. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tell yourself the truth because a lot of our internal problems begin with the lies that we tell ourselves. Is inner work the missing piece when it comes to feeling good? Today's guest knows a little bit about that topic. His name is Diego Perez. He goes by the pen name Young Pueblo. And we have a deep dive conversation on all things personal development, letting go and becoming more mentally and physically resilient.

If you care about inner work, spiritual development, and being. the best you, this episode is for you. Stay tuned. This episode of the podcast is brought to you by Thrive Market. Let's talk about one of my favorite resources for getting healthy foods delivered right to my doorstep. It's Thrive Market. When it comes to what I eat, I'm super intentional. It's very important for me to know exactly what I'm buying so I can always take a deep dive into the ingredients and company practices before adding anything new to my kitchen. With Thrive Market, I've been able to find tons of the brands I trust right in one spot, like Four Sigma, Hugh Kitchen, Artisana, and so many others.

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the most toxic item in our home is actually our mattress. I'm sure many of you were shocked to hear that as I was. This is especially scary when the average person spends more than 26 years of their life sleeping. We spend so much time in bed, but it's crazy that we're more likely to splurge on an expensive car or clothes. Well, I'm advocating for a better mattress for you. Most mattresses on the market, though, contain harmful chemicals and polyurethane foam, which emits things like volatile organic compounds or VOCs. They've been linked to respiratory issues, reproductive damage, and they can even damage your immunity. I spent a lot of time.

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and you can try it risk-free for 100 nights. Birch also ships directly to your door for free with no contact required, and they'll pick it up for free if you don't love it. Check out the Birch mattress today by Helix. Now, back to this week's episode. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Drew Perot podcast. Each week, we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is author and teacher Diego Perez. Diego is a meditator, writer, and speaker who is widely known on Instagram and various social media networks through his pen name Young Pueblo. Online, he has an audience of over a million people that he reaches through his written, works that focus on the reality of self-healing, the movement from self-love to unconditional love, and the wisdom that comes when we truly work on knowing ourselves. His first book Inward

quickly became a bestseller, and his second book, which we'll be talking about today, clarity and connection, is available for pre-order today. Viego, welcome back to the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for having me, brother. It's so good to be back here. Always enjoy men. I actually want to start off the interview by talking about health, and then we'll get into personal development. Yeah, let's do it. Because I know you're a health officianto, and you are always thinking about ways to improve your health. And one of the things I say in the intro of this podcast is that, you know, I invite on guests who will help you up level your wellness, your mindset, you know, your spirituality. But at the end of the day,

the goal of all those things is to help you show up and give love and attention to all the things in life that you care about. Right. And I'm curious for you as a writer in this topic of personal development in the space of inner work, spirituality. How have you seen your own health improve over the years through doing this inner work? It's funny because like literally, I would say the day after that I had my sort of like big rock bottom moment where I knew that I had to turn my life around and make big changes. The first thing that I honed in on was radical honesty. I need to be honest with myself.

And I realized that what had gotten me to such a difficult point. was that I had been lying to myself about how I felt in my mind, how I felt in my body, I was just ignoring any sort of tension that I was feeling at all. But when I started being honest with myself, I realized I'm like, okay, I'm incredibly unhealthy. You know, I was very overweight. I just felt like terrible. You know, I would move a little bit, go walking, and my heart would just be beating

through my chest and I would, yeah, I felt sick all the time. So one of the first things I did for my health when I was, I would, I would just be beating through my health when I started turning inward, I remember I did two things. I started going on really long walks and started like, you know, from there, like jogging and just like really slowly. And I remember I bought a big tub of barley grass. So this is back in like 2011, you know, when like superfoods were just coming in. And I knew I was like, okay, my diet's not good. It's not a good diet that supports my happiness. So I needed to bring in high nutritional foods. And that was like one of the first things I did. And immediately I felt the difference. Like I was like, okay, I feel I feel a bit better.

And from there, you know, a lot of it was like self-awareness work. But like it really started with like, okay, I feel like that feel terrible in my body. I need to do something about this. you know sometimes people will ask me because I do a lot of solo episodes on mindset in addition to all the different health experts that I have on the podcast and I get this sort of you know if you could only do one thing like what would you do right people always curious about that and it's like what makes more of a difference is it the health side is it the inner work side and I sort of feel like they both impact each other and we kind of have to start wherever our own gut is sort of drawing us into. For a lot of people, that's been the inner work side, and then that kind of got them into hell. And for other people, it's been, like in my case, I just, I was 18. I had really bad acne, and I just didn't want acne anymore.

And I wasn't really thinking about bigger questions. And that's what got started my journey. When people come to you and they say, like, where should I start or what's right for me, how do you answer that question? That's funny. I think especially if you haven't, you know, gotten like a therapist or you don't have a meditation practice or you don't have some sort of like introspective method, I would say start with radical honesty. Like that's what I know. That's what I started with.

So just tell yourself the truth because a lot of our internal problems begin with the lies that we tell ourselves. And once you start that like process of radical honesty, then you can develop like a. a clear, clearer plan as to like what you want to focus on. Because I agree with people in a sense that, you know, for a while, like for years, I focused on like, let me have a sturdy, solid meditation practice. And let me really focus in on that. And then after that, I was like, okay, like now that my meditation practice is solid, I need to start tweaking my health. And I remember at the time, I had kind of like, you know, I felt pretty good. But I knew that I could feel a lot better in terms of my body and like what I was you know what what did my body need to feel really

good and um that was when I came across like Mark Hyman's work and started you know just like eating in ways that really support my happiness. Let's talk about this phrase radical honesty. Yeah. I love to hear what you mean and some people not our full audience but some people in our audience might be aware of sort of the work of like a very eccentric figure Brad Blanton, I believe is his name, who originally kind of came up with this concept of radical honesty. And I'm not sure if you're familiar at all with sort of his journey, but he's a very eccentric character. There's been a couple documentaries about him and other things like that. And he has this whole institution. But his sort of form of radical honesty focuses on, you know,

telling everybody else how it is. But I'm hearing that you kind of, you know, your version of Radical honesty is like first, we're starting to be honest with ourselves before we go start telling other people. Oh, yeah, that's funny. I don't, yeah, I thank you for letting me know about that because I actually was not aware of his work. Yeah, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm like, I mean, like, there's a value, of course, in like telling the people close to you, you know, whatever truth that you need to tell them. But I'm talking about between you and yourself. Like, this is a type of radical honestly that I was expressing within myself and I call it radical because it was just like a big shift in terms of how I was behaving before with myself and how I'm trying to behave now consistently

because it was funny. I put myself into a situation where I was constantly trying to run away from my own pain and trying to run away from the fact that like yeah, my mind my mind was riddled with sadness and anxiety and it got to the point where I was developing such bad habits in terms of like how I would eat, how I was always looking for, you know, different outlets to like fill my body with the sensation of pleasure, whether it was through alcohol or drugs or partying all the time. And I got there because I just wasn't honest about the fact that I didn't feel good. You know, when I would be alone, I would feel incredibly sad. And being able to pull myself out of that state and into a better state, it was all done because I was

like, hey, like, you're actually sad and it's okay for you to be sad. And instead of running away from it, stay with it, be with it, feel it. And that really started the journey. For the people that are listening, let's map out some of the things, you know, starting off with some of the, to put them in quotes, right, is people often think of them as problems in their life, right? What are some of the patterns and the problems you see people developing when they're constantly running away from addressing that truth in their body, right? What do we tend to do to ourselves and to other people around us, especially other people around us into society when we're constantly in a place where we are avoiding feeling fully

that pain and then addressing it and saying, okay, I need to make steps in this direction to actually heal. What are the patterns that people might notice and see themselves or other people around them play out with. Well, especially if you're always trying to, like, I call it, you know, if you're constantly trying to extrovert, meaning like you don't want to introvert at any moment. You don't want to spend time just alone within your own solitude. So if you're constantly trying to extrovert, that means that you're much more likely to set yourself up into a situation where you'll be projecting. And you won't quite realize like, oh, I feel angry in this moment.

And instead, you're going to just start just telling other people. how you feel instead, you know, and you're going to become quite confused about like, okay, no, you're the one that's angry, you know, trying to tell somebody else, okay, you're angry, but reality, it's just you. And you're going to feel your emotions, but not fully actualize them or not fully realize them, and then you're just going to throw them around everywhere else. So whenever you feel tension, you won't own the tension, you'll just try to displace the tension onto somebody else. And I think that's a pretty, pretty slippery slope that just creates a lot of unnecessary arguments amongst friends, amongst family members, amongst,

you know, intimate partners. And it's just common. Like if you don't know slash or don't want to spend time alone with yourself, then you're going to cause yourself a lot of struggles because in your solitude, you're going to be able to not only know yourself, but you're going to be able to love yourself. And then later on, you're going to be able to take that new depth that you developed with yourself and actualize that in your relationships with other people. And that's something that's really common is that if you're always trying to run away from yourself, then pretty automatically you're going to fall into a pattern where your relationships are just really superficial.

Yeah, you know, there's these memes that come out on Instagram, which is sort of like I've referenced it in past podcast, but it's like, fire every toxic person in your life, right? And they're like, it's like, get rid of these people. Stop hanging out with this. And it's like, okay, cool. There could be some benefit. I don't want anybody spending time with somebody who's constantly heavy bringing the situation down, being belligerent towards them, sarcastic, whatever it might be.

And, you know, and end is one of my favorite words, right? Because it's like, it allows multiple things to be true. It's like, okay, great. And there's this other side where our, you know, and it's a big through line throughout your new book, clarity and connection. And the end part is that our close relationships in our life become a mirror for what we ourselves are going through. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, I think, and it's funny, I'm really glad that you brought up that point too, just to like backtrack a little bit about it's, it is important to be able to create your own like safe zone in life. So if there are people who are being really intense around you, like obviously you have every right to create space between you and them. But on the other end, on the other end, you don't want to fall into an extreme, which is like a very common pattern for all human beings where we take one idea and then we push it way too far where like no longer are. we really building boundaries, but now we're just avoiding any complex situation or avoiding like, you know, interpersonal problem solving because that's one thing. It's like if you build too many walls, then you might build yourself into a prison where you're not then allowing yourself to grow and be able to just deal with the difficult situations that are common in life. Because, you know, sometimes it's a dream that you are going to get to this place where there's

no longer going to be any more down moments. Like, that's not what healing is about. That's not what, like, getting to know yourself is about is, you know, it's being able to face the ups and downs without attachment, without causing yourself misery and just realizing that this is part of life and this is all for your growth. So, you know, face the ups and downs boldly. Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about how your inner work has helped you sort of process the layers that have taken place societally over the last year, right? There's so many layers between, you know, a big one. We're recording this conversation right after, you know, the Derek Chauvin trial, George Floyd's, you know, murder, you know, lack of matters, everything like that. And there's a lot of naturally,

as there would be in any situation, there's a lot of grief, there's a lot of anger, there's a lot of feelings that are there. And some of that is directed well. Some of that feels like it might not have a home or it doesn't really have like a direction, right? How is your understanding and your inner work helped you to process the layers that have occurred? If you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I think it's interesting. We live in such a, like in a moment of such intense complexity, especially,

when it comes to like systemic racism, when it comes to patriarchy, when it comes to like global economic poverty. So one thing is realizing that there are a lot of different views. There people see things in different ways because like, you know, they have their own emotional history. They have their own sort of like situation that they're dealing with or their own like immediate forms of oppression that they're combating. So all of these different views, it's you get into a tricky situation where there is no one right answer about how to move forward. but even like what you were saying before like there are multiple things can be true at once and you know even with like the derik chauvin verdict like i see a lot of people cheering for okay like

you know he is guilty and of course like what he did it was very clear like that was what he did was horrible horrendous and it was an effect of white supremacy that exists in the united states but at the same time like can we also agree that as a society, we can come up with more compassionate systems so that we don't have to have so many senseless murders anymore and also don't have a situation where we're constantly putting people away in jail and making them disappear because this is something that's also, you know, affecting especially black and brown people in the United States, obviously and a lot of poor white people as well who end up going to jail and disappearing where they're just, you know, gone

from the system, no longer allowed to be part of society. but the real question that I'm always asking myself is like, can we build a world without prisons, you know, a world where we can actually help rehabilitate people and do this like deeper, harder, healing work so that we can have a much more regenerative system and transformative system as opposed to just like being like, okay, you messed up, you're out, you know? And it's tough because at the same time, like people are losing lives. people are, you know, getting very hurt and also causing hurt in very real ways. And it's just tough.

You know, there's no one clear answer. So like, yeah, we do have this type of justice system that we have now. But at the same time, like, let's push ourselves to evolve it so that we can decrease the harm that exists in the world and actually scale up the compassion that we can feel as individuals. Like, how can we make our healthcare system more compassionate? How can we make our education systems more compassionate? How can we make any type of justice system that we have? How can we have that be compassion and action as opposed to just like different forms of violence that we're applying on each other? And so beautifully said, and I think that along with it, if we look back to the past, you know, people like, you know, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., who all three of them were human beings, which means that human beings are all.

flawed in their own way, right? It's interesting to see, you know, people want to pick apart these individuals. And it's like, I say, like, they're reminders that that energy to create a revolution is all inside of us. And they were legitimately human beings. Now, that doesn't mean that we're here to sort of forgive any type of, you know, behavior that's there or not. It's more, we don't need to have the judgment. We just need to see them for who they were. But, you know, I digress for a second. So if we look to, you know, looked to them, a big message that they had was also the nonviolent action, right? A lot of that came from Gandhi and his study of the, of, with, um, with, um, Shreemad Chandar,

who's actually a lesser known individual from the Jane tradition, which is one of my backgrounds, but it's also a sense of compassion for your oppressor, right? Because I did this interview with a buddy of mine. His name is Peter Cronin. He said, if, you know, take some of the person. somebody you judge. And if you grew up in the exact same circumstances they did, with the exact parenting, with the exact inputs, with the exact everything, you most likely would end up conducting a lot of their similar actions. And that's a little bit of the compassion. It's not

very trendy these days to say to have compassion for police officers. And again, this is all layers that are there. But if we look at that lens of police officers, again, just topical related, we would have a sense of compassion for the fact that, you know, anybody who knows anything about the world of policing knows that police officers go to these courses that are on the side where they're drilled every month on these courses that, look, the goal is to just try to stay alive, right? And make it to your pension. And if you can make it to your pension, then that's considered a success.

And the world is very violent. And just like we all see things on social media or the news, they see a lot of examples of things going wrong. and that is embedded into their system, right? And another aspect, you know, talking about a little bit about my business partner, Dr. Hyman, is we have an uptick in mental health issues in the United States. And we're relying on police officers to handle these mental health issues that they were never trained for it, right?

So it's, yeah, I feel for them. I feel for them. And that doesn't mean that you can't look at an action and say that it's, you know, not good or in some cases extremely wrong. But it's to have that embrace a little bit of that Gandhi, that Martin Luther King, Jr., that Nelson Mandela, where they were feeling compassion because we have to take a little bit of that higher ground if we're going to be able to move forward from here and understand everybody, compassion for ourselves, compassion for our oppressor, compassion deeply for the people

who are being also oppressed. I mean, that's incredibly well said. I think one sentence that comes to mind is unconditional love sees no one as an enemy. And that's a pretty like elevated state, but to be able to get yourself to the point where you can look upon all people, those who cause harm and those who don't cause harm, and see that they're all incredibly flawed human beings. Like all of us, we all contain ignorance. We can all make mistakes. We can all, you know, we all have the potential to do really beautiful things and really harmful things that we will later regret. And seeing that imperfection and being able to honor the fact that that imperfection is there just opens a door for compassion because the same.

same way that they can mess up, you can mess up. And just because someone has messed up in a really bad way, it doesn't mean that they can no longer be rehabilitated and become a good, great person. There's this really beautiful story in the sutas of, you know, during the Buddhist time. There was this person called Anguli Mala, who he was like this pretty savage killer. He killed like 99 people. And he, there. then like the thousandth person was going to be, I think it was going to be the Buddha. But when he interacted with the Buddha, the Buddha was able to speak with him and basically get him to realize what he was doing and his mistakes and then taught him

how to meditate. And then this guy went to the forest, kept meditating, and eventually became fully liberated. And after that became a saint. And he became a saint that ended up helping other people also become liberated. So that story to me always stands out because someone who can make immense flaws who can, no, sorry, someone who can make immense, like, harmful actions also has the potential to become a saint. And I think that's like inside of every one of us. You know, we both have those two possibilities.

Similarly, though, about like this mental health crisis that's happening, like, I totally agree. But what I'm hoping that we can move into over the next decade is like this whole conversation about mental health has been incredibly, incredibly effective and useful, but I'm hoping that we can then encourage our cities, our states, our governments like national and internationally to not only focus on mental health, but to actually activate a deep healing initiative, you know, where we can support people and go into therapy, support people and going to, you know, if they need some type of meditation or some type of, you know, some type of introspective method that can help them become a better version of themselves

and to decrease the tension in their mind so they don't cause themselves harm and other people less, you know, if you're able to decrease attention in your mind and you're able to be a little more self-aware and you're able to love yourself a little better, then you're going to be much less likely to harm other people. And to be able to support these deep-peeling initiatives, I think could be huge and really radically transforming.

Huge. And I look forward to that. And in a way, you see, society waking up where now a lot more people, it used to be that people would go into, you know, want to go into banking. And listen, a lot of people are still going into banking and no judgment on it, right? We need bankers and no judge. But so many more people are excited to go into wellness, to come up with tools, psychedelics, to provide healing modalities and medium. And I have just so much, as much as we see because of our brain's negativity bias, all the wrong that's in the world, I see just so much good that's there. And that doesn't

cancel out the wrong. The wrong is still there, but there's so much good that's coming up from the citizens and from the people. Some of those citizens are going into government. Some of those citizens are in the private sector. They're coming up with solutions, building businesses. And it's like there's a collective awareness that we're in this perfect storm where things both have gotten so bad, but praise to technology. Technology gets a lot of negativity and a lot of negative credit. But in a way, technology has allowed us to actually document some of this injustice, be able to come up with solutions around it, decentralized tools where previously we would rely on the government, you know, to come in and do one failed big swoop. Now we have more people that are empowered

ever than before. And I feel hopeful of that, right? I feel very hopeful that we could look at like systemic injustice and say, okay, great. How about these really, really hard hit, food desert communities. Dr. Hyman always talks about working in Cleveland and how just out the outskirts of the Cleveland Clinic, there's a few areas that are a food desert. And you can't just go in and tell people go eat healthier. And by the way, it's going to prevent, you know, your likelihood of COVID. You have to take them on the journey. You've got to sit with them. You've got to show them, you got to educate them and show them how to make recipes and meals. And what would it look like if a doctor could write a prescription and say, look, this is for your

health, like go get healthy food. Like, that's the world that I feel we got to create together, but we can only do that. And this is why, you know, again, I'm going on a monologue, which I don't usually do in interviews. I think you just got me excited. But going on a little bit of the of the fact that inner work is the pathway to do that. Because when you see your own ups, you see your own downs, you see your own faults, you recognize it in everyone. And you start to ask a question, if I was in their shoes, what type of support would I need? What kind of help would I need from individuals? That's how I look at the situation. You know, it's funny because you're getting me fired up too. And I was wondering if you've noticed the same thing. Like, one of the

biggest things that gives me hope is the fact that it's so interesting that at the same time, like this particular century, this is going to be one of the most four. formative centuries like in human history. We have these immense, immense challenges in front of us in terms of like inequality, climate change, just overcoming global racism, overcoming patriarchy. We have these massive challenges. But at the same time that we have to sort of step up our game to be able to deal with them and come up with new, better solutions, there is this massive, very quiet global healing

movement that is occurring. Because now that the world is globalized, the best from different parts of the world, you know, from the eastern world, from the Western world, from indigenous communities, we have so many different healing methods. You know, we're talking about from different forms of meditation to therapy to now understanding psychedelics better as a way of, you know, as a new healing method as well. There's so much out there. Even to like, you know, people using journaling or whatnot, there's so much out there that it helps different people who have different varieties of emotional histories, right? Some of us have dealt with very immense trauma, others less so. But for everyone out there, there is some sort of tool that can help you

peel back the layers that you're carrying within you, undo the burdens, unbind the patterns, so that you can start being a little happier, a little freer, make better decisions for yourself, and just support your inner well-being. And automatically that will sort of decrease that very thick layer of human habit that we all carry, you know, that greediness, that fearfulness. And it'll help that inner love and creativity just blossom outward. And this is what we need, right? Because more and more people who are able to, like what I said before,

if you can love yourself a little bit better, then you're going to be less likely to harm other people. And not only that, you're going to think much more creatively and you're going to have a new energy for life. So this will help us just look at these old problems that we've had for a long time and just come up with new solutions. And that happens on the individual level, the local level, and the national and global. I want to read. You mentioned trauma. I want to just read out. Unless if you have your book in front of you and you want to read it, I'm happy to have you read it as well. Which page? Page number 80. You have a little part about trauma that I thought would be nice to have you read to the audience.

And yeah, I'll give you some time to find that. Would you mind reading this? Sure, sure. When trauma becomes a part of your identity, it is harder to heal. The narratives that define how you see yourself need space to change. Acknowledging your past is important, but so is doing the work to unbind those old patterns so you can move beyond them. Allowing your sense of self to be fluid will support your happiness.

Change is always happening, especially within you. I really love that. As I was flipping around, that's the beauty of your book. You can kind of like flip around a lot of pages, read them individually and get so much joy out of it, even if you don't follow it, you know, begin. beginning to end sequentially. And when I came across a section, I thought like, the way you write is in the way that I think of sort of like a compassionate grandparent who is sharing to their kids or people that are

there, grandkids of like, hey, listen, like, there's no judgment on it. You can do any kind of direction you want to go to in life. but let me share with you just some patterns that I've seen in sort of becoming this person that I'm in. And I think that if we had a compassionate, you know, universal grandmother that was looking after society right now and giving some advice, it would be the, probably a lot of it would come from within that and phrase. It's like, I know everybody's hurting, right? And I know it's so important to call out oppression and they would share some version of your poem, which is, When trauma becomes part of your identity, it's harder to heal.

That's just a fundamental truth. Because when we, well, let me ask you, why is it harder to heal? And what do you think that people could take away from this who are going through some version of them feeling like they're being oppressed, which could even be, doesn't have to do anything with race or tribes or other stuff, it could be that they're in a family and they want to pursue a particular career or they want to marry somebody that their family doesn't, you know, agree with? They feel like they're being victimized.

They feel like they're being put down. What do you think that they can learn about? And what would you want to tell them about when trauma becomes part of your identity, it's harder to heal? Why is it harder to heal? Yeah, I think something that occurs with a lot of us, you know, where once we start getting to know ourselves, we quickly will start adding more labels to our own identity.

We'll start, you know, the ego has like another way of understanding itself. So when you start discovering your anxiety, you're like, I am, you know, you start thinking, I am anxiety. Like, I have anxiety in me. And then once your identity kind of wraps itself around this, you know, like, I'm just using anxiety because I'm thinking about myself, like, you know, thinking of myself as like, oh, I'm an anxious person, then how can you let go of that anxiousness when it becomes like a concrete part of the way you see yourself?

So as opposed to thinking like, oh, I am this. It's like, no, I am momentarily feeling this, and then this is also transient, just like everything else. This is also going to change. It's fleeting. One thing that I notice is that having a static sense of identity, it causes a lot of problems. Like, if you try to see yourself as one thing, or if you're constantly trying to bring yourself back to an old state where you were like, oh, this was the prime of my life, or this was like when I was at my best, well, actually, that past situation is just a memory. It's not there anymore. It's gone because time flows forward.

So at best, you're going to, you know, not at best, but you're much better off focusing on just undoing this healing work and unbinding those patterns so that any remnants of the past that you're carrying that are sort of trying to make you behave in old ways, you can let them go and then just live a better life now as opposed to trying to go back to the past. I think a lot of us struggle with like, you know, adding more things to our identity, more different, you know, different types of labels. But then we don't, then we don't know how to release them when we outgrow them. Because like, yeah, you may have had X, Y, and Z for a certain part of your life, but then you do heal, you let go or you change your environment, situations change.

And then that's not really a part of you anymore. So then, you know, it's worthwhile to unload that baggage and let it go. And I think I've, you know, in my personal life, It's been a big shift when I started seeing my sense of identity more as a river that's just flowing and changing and it's weaving and bobbing and moving and it's okay because you don't need to be the same for the rest of your life. And actually trying to be the same is moving against the forces of nature because nature is just literally ripples of change that are happening incredibly rapidly. It's so true and like when we embody that we can have so much

so much compassion for people that are out there that are going through their own version of change, just like you were talking about, we love these stories in different tribes around the world or in sort of the Guitas or the Vedas or, you know, different spiritual teachings. We love these stories of transformation and forgiveness. And if we want to embrace the modern day version, it's like there's the opportunity in front of us, right? could be even to resist our urge to want to immediately cancel somebody because we don't like what they said, but to also see that what they said, okay, maybe was not right, maybe or was not productive or that they didn't maintain the power that they had and displace it in a great way.

But it's like, do we want to get rid of them or do we want to get a chance to embrace them and get a chance to teach with them and get a chance to engage? And there's not a right answer. And I'm not sort of making only political commentary. I'm just saying that when we see that we can be identified with trauma, we have compassion for other people that are there. And it really feels like that awareness is a big part of what allows us to heal moving forward is that when everybody gets an opportunity to heal.

Now, some people may not want to heal in this moment. And they're going to go down their patterns. But there's also something for us to embrace inside of that. We don't have autonomy and control over their lives. We can't force them into doing something, right? I'm sure there's been times, you know, a big part of the second part of the book is is about our relationship with other people. And it's so much easier to find fault in somebody that you love and are close to and

them and not seeing it's always you. It's always you, but not me. It's always you, but it's not me. Yeah. And is there one of the people? your writings that sort of that you'd like to pull up that reflects off of that, right? It's easier to find it in somebody else than it is to find it in our, in ourself. Is there anyone that comes to mind? And if not, maybe you can just expand on that topic a little bit. Yeah. There's actually

a few in the book, but the book's new. So I don't even know the page number off the top of my head. But there's one in particular where, you know, I try to put out different perspectives that kind of balance everything out because I definitely don't want to support anyone and going to an extreme. So in a similar way where it's really good for us to, you know, support our own growth and also if somebody else is willing to grow to support them and their growth, at the same time, we have to be very careful to notice the ego's attempt to try to make other people just like you. The ego loves when it's reaffirmed and when its views or the views that's the views that it holds. Other people also try to hold them as well. And there's something so pleasurable to the

ego that if you and I both hold the same opinion, it just feels good. And that happens often within friendships, within intimate relationships where we think we're trying to do what's best for somebody else, but in reality, we're just trying to make them make the same decisions that we have made. And that's not real love. That's not actually supportive. And sometimes it happens in a very like quiet, almost like insidious manner where you won't even notice that it's happening and you think you're just trying to help them live their best life. But it's like, no, you're actually trying to help them live your life. And catching yourself in that and catching them, you know, catching yourself like, just like, you know, it's fine because we actually all do it. So

it's nothing blameworthy. But when you become self-aware of that, try to live that model of more unconditional love. Like, how can I support them in making the decisions that they want to make, you know, especially if it's like a relationship, you know, amongst friends or amongst like, amongst anyone, but we're not all going to be the same. But if we really love each other, we will support each other's freedoms. And if we support each other's freedoms, that doesn't mean that negates the deeper commitments that we've made to each other, you know, because a lot of relationships that are literally built on our commitments, like I voluntary commit. to support you in very specific ways or in looser ways, you know, whatever works for the two of us.

But at the same time, I can commit to supporting your happiness, but I can also commit to supporting your freedom. And in between the two, you know, we'll find a lot of joy together. Here's one that I'll bring up that was in my show notes. I don't have a page number for you, unfortunately. So I'll just read it if that's okay with you. Yeah, please. Find a partner who can give you the space you need to be your own person. It is helpful. to have different interest, likes, and dislikes. You do not need to become the same person to prove your love to each other. You know you are both supporting each other's happiness when you feel like you can be your truest self. Remember, trust blossoms in the absence of control and vibrant

relationships should feel like a balance of freedom and home. Although that was beautifully put And do you ever share it all, sort of the behind the scenes, the director's cuts of what was going on? If you don't, that's totally fine. But what made you think about that and wanting to write about that? I think, you know, yeah, a lot of these, you know, I think that poem in particular, that one was written like during the lockdowns in the pandemic when we were all like bundled up in our apartments. I was in New York City at the time. And my wife and I spent a lot of time alone together, just the two of us. And it was actually like a beautiful time.

It was a time where we got to just like really reconnect because right before that period, we were kind of both complaining about how we hadn't spent enough time with each other in a long time because we were always so busy. But at the same time, when you're in close proximity with someone, that's a good incubator for growth. Another person is going to be your clear mirror and you're going to say, see parts of yourself in them that, you know, kind of brings, bring even more things up in you. But one thing that felt really healthy was just that both of us giving each other space, you know, even though we were in the same space together, we don't need to constantly be on top of each

other or constantly be talking or watching the same things or reading the same books. Like, I don't love my wife because she's like me. I love her because she's like her. Like, she is who she is. And we do complement each other really well, and we do a lot of growing together. But, you know, I love that she has favorite shows that I don't really like. And, you know, and just like little things like that. But seeing that, you know, and similarly, like, you know, there's tons of things that are interests that I have.

Like, she doesn't like anime the way I do. You know, she thinks it's silly. And, you know, just little things like that. But it became really clear that if I really love you, like, I'm going to commit to supporting your freedom. And like, and don't get me wrong. Supporting your freedom doesn't mean like, oh, you can like just run wild and do whatever. It's like, no, it's just being able to support you and being you.

And this goes for like all relationships. You know, you want to be able to let people just be themselves and just, you know, flow the way they're going to flow. they are their own river and they have their own journey and that journey is not going to move at the same speed as your journey. And that journey also isn't necessarily going to have the same trajectory. So, you know, if you really love someone, whether it's a sibling or a parent or an intimate partner, like, be ready to support their freedom. It reminds me of a quote from Esther Perel, which is what we used to get from an entire village we now expect from one.

person. We were living these, these, that's a good one, romanticized lives, which Hollywood has been a part of that, but, you know, not to put the blame on them or anything like that. It's just been a part of that trajectory and that story of the infinite union and the coupling of, you know, two people coming together and like, quote unquote, completing each other. And as families have evolved and nuclear families have changed and houses have changed and we're no longer in these villages. I can understand society's urge to want to get everything out of that person, which is in the beginning, celebrating all the ways that they bring something unique to you. And then as the relationship goes on, dreading all the ways that they're different from you.

But really, that poem that I read is we might be missing the mark because the real question is, what is the goal, right? What is the goal? A beautiful relationship is two, you know, perfectly sort of whole and complete human beings that are deciding to share a journey together, not a romanticized version that we have to complete each other and be into all the same things. You know, I love that you're bringing that out too because I think one of the biggest sicknesses of our time is this chasing for perfection, you know, whether we want ourselves to fit this

perfect mold or we want our partners to fit this perfect mold. And I think for a lot of people, like, they actually end up, you know, not following through on a relationship because the person isn't perfect, isn't exactly everything they want. And when you don't quite accept the fact that life is ups and downs, like they're in ups and downs in your own life, ups and downs in your friend groups, ups and downs in your like intimate partnerships, like this is, this is part of life. So you do want to find the right person for you, but the right person, like the moment that you're looking for perfection, you already lost because that person isn't out there. No one's perfect.

So especially even if you have someone who has immense emotional maturity, really knows themselves, even when you find a person like that, if that's what you're looking for, there's still going to be disagreements. There are still going to be moments of disharmony, moments where you two have to figure out how to communicate really well so that you can understand both sides of your stories and be able to build a new, deeper harmony through these difficult, challenging moments. So I think being able to embrace the challenge of any type of interpersonal connection allows you to have a much deeper connection with anyone that you interact with.

Because like, I don't know, looking for perfection, it's just, it's just not real. You know, it's not something, especially because we each have our own perception. So it's so easy for me to hear you say something and then get upset about it because I have some old emotional attachment to some version of what you said that just brings up this rough stuff. from my own past. So is it really about you? Maybe not at all. You know, so it's easy to mess up because we all carry very unique perceptions.

You know, a form of perfectionism that a lot of people struggle with, but they may not even realize that it is a form of perfection. And it's a pattern that can run people to the ground, cause burnout, you know, ruin relationships. And that's the pattern of people pleasing. and you talk about that inside of the book a little bit, and you write that being a people pleaser is a dangerous game. To give everything to everyone will require you to give nothing for yourself. People pleasing will cost you your authenticity, your goals, and your integrity.

If you want to be happy, you have to live your truth boldly on your terms. For anybody that resonates with that and has a history of people pleasing, What do you want to share with them, whether it's your own journey or what you've noticed in your meditations and on your writings about people pleasing? Yeah, I mean, and especially even just being on social media, you know, like you, one of the things you quickly learn is that you can't control other people's perceptions of you. So if you try to be a people pleaser that makes every person happy, it's literally going to be impossible because you can't define someone else's perception of you.

and because you have no control over that, then you're automatically playing a losing game. And if you get really caught up in that game of people pleasing and trying to make everyone around you happy, then you're just going to have no time for yourself and you're constantly going to, you're not finding that balance where, yeah, you do want to be kind to other people. Don't get me wrong. You want to be compassionate and try to meet people where they're at when you can. But at the same time, you want to honor yourself and where you're at, what you need, what are your goals so that you can find a health.

middle ground that you can both stand on. And if we're not finding that middle ground, that honors where we're at and where, you know, whoever else that we're interacting with is at, then you're going to have disharmony, you're going to have difficulty, and you're going to have a lot of mental tension. But the people pleasing game is something that I think a lot of us just got, get caught up in because we don't like conflict. But, and it's not even, you know, you don't need to have conflict every time. that you want to express your authenticity. There are ways for you to express your authenticity in a

compassionate and calm manner and, you know, there's just no need for it always to like devolve into conflict. But at the same time, like conflict happens sometimes and it's fine. We can still have opposing views and deal with it in an effective, harmonious, communicative manner that, you know, we both get something a lot of, you know, we can both get a lot out of. You know, when I read that part about people pleasing, I thought of the fact that, you know, people pleasing is kind of wired into our DNA. Many societies around the world, and you still have this with a lot of modern day hunter-gatherer societies that they teach, you know, young kids from a, from, they teach kids at a young age

and as shape them as they become adults and, you know, rights of passage and everything. It's like, here's how society expects of you. Here's what people expect of you. and it's often in a benevolent way. And sometimes it's not, right? It's more of a controlling way. And you learn from a young age to keep the harmony because for the happiness of the tribe,

we need everybody to kind of conform a little bit. And the interesting thing is that animals do this too. Wolves will often, you know, shape each other's behavior. And I guess like Caesar Milan, the dog whisper, you know, he's big on sort of, hey, listen, if you have a dog that is not in a pack, it starts to develop all these crazy behaviors like, barking all the time and other stuff. They learn through socialization. So we very much are like that. And the interesting thing is nobody gives you a rulebook for our modern day day and age.

So people pleasing is wired into our nervous system. We want people to treat us well because the deepest fear that we all have ultimately is death. But what is close to death is the idea of being ostracized, right, kicked out of the group. They don't like you anymore. Go fend for yourself. Go fetch water, hunt, build shelter, and most human beings can't. And in fact, a lot of of societies, they didn't have execution, but they did ostracize people when they continue to break the rules and operate out of pattern. So I'd like to remind people about that because people pleasing comes from a genuine place, but because nobody gave us a rulebook and we don't really have introspection and we live in different communities, it's gotten out of control

in a way that can really have you give up on all your goals and dreams in life. exactly and I feel like the the if you were to give this um podcast a topic it's like living without extremes right so it's it's really important to understand an idea and then not take it all the way to another extreme where you're just like totally not honoring the origins of that idea what you're making me think about too is if if you want to balance that out you want to be able to be authentic in your interactions and you know try to achieve your own goals but also Also, do you have enough wisdom and maturity to be okay when you don't get what you want? Right?

Because especially with like intimate relationships, I think it's give and take, right? Like, you know, one of us can't always say like what the both of us are going to do. We both have to be able to, you know, one step up, one step back and then just take turns doing that and leading so that we can both have ample time to lead. but being able to just be okay with not getting exactly what you want is like one of the, I don't know, I feel like there's a lot of like safety and joy in being able to just like not constantly be craving for more or not constantly be craving for control. And don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean like, oh, you should never get what you want. Totally, you should, you know, you should.

But 100% of the time, impossible. So, you know, life is just going to show. you how quickly you won't be able to get everything you want. So being okay with not constantly craving for more, that's actually going to not only open you up to a bunch of deeper wisdom, but it's going to help you just like find more harmony in seeing your partner or your friend or your family member full of happiness because they got, you know, something that they really wanted and you're going to feel a deeper type of sympathetic joy, a happy. happiness for their happiness that, you know, will also fill you up in a very profound way.

And not getting what we want can be one of the beautiful growth opportunities in our life. We don't get what we want in one area. And all of a sudden now we start thinking in a different way. We start looking for new opportunities. We look for new ways to solve a challenge. And that's a great thing because we all want to grow. But then the question sometimes is, do we want to do the work that is required for that growth and not getting what we want seems to be one of those things that's uniquely

tied into that process of growth. I want to come back to people pleasing for one second and say, on a practical level, what do you imagine? Now that we understand, like, this idea of, you know, its origins and also that so much of breaking a pattern is realizing everything we're losing because we're holding on to it so tightly, right? we don't often think of us losing out on a lot of stuff, but you talked about that inside the poem. On a practical level, now that we're aware of it, what have been some, whether there

boundaries, communication, other stuff that you've used in your own life to take a step back from a pattern of people pleasing? Yeah, one of the biggest things that I'm like what I'm trying to implement to break my own pattern is moving slowly. Like before I would move way too fast, you know. and fast in a way where I would try to like emulate being a machine where I'm like, you know, trying to respond to every text message, trying to respond to every email, trying to get as much done as possible every day. And now I feel like that's actually pretty unhealthy for me. And just because, you know, I get a message, you know, through, because now it's, it's tricky because there are so many different ways for people to communicate with each other that you have

all these different inboxes and to be able to take time. to respond to every single thing, it takes up a lot of energy. And that's something that I, as an individual, like I have to manage my interactions with social media as a whole, because if I spend too much time on there, I'm burning my energy. And it's actually not good for my own personal mental health to, you know, constantly be plugged in. So being able to give myself time and, you know, I get an email or something, I don't need to respond right away. I could respond in a day or two because I just need to, you know, give myself breathing space. And I think that's part of that, like, breaking that people pleasing pattern where it's like, you know, a lot of people,

yeah, you do want an immediate response. But like, if I give it to you, then I would be taking something away from myself because I also need to like live my life the way that best supports my like health and happiness and well-being. And ultimately self-actualize and ask yourself, you know, why are you here? You know, are you here to, sure, as you mentioned, some messages need responding. There's going to be some level of administrative stuff, especially when you've built a massive following like you have done. New opportunities come in, you know, new, uh, and we also ask other people of things, right? We want to be on people's podcasts, talk about our book. We want to get support for this other aspect. So, you know, there's compassion on both ends of it. But ultimately,

I think that, you know, there's a book that I read a few years ago. It's called The One Thing by Gary Keller. And I really recommend it for a lot of people because the book is asking that central question, which is, what do you really feel like you're brought here to do? And if you say no to a lot of other stuff that's like out there or minimize it in your life, but you're saying yes to this very important thing that you want to give attention to or want to make progress on or make the world a better place in, that discipline of continuing to say yes to the thing that you want to focus on actually also brings you a deeper sense of peace. because you're not worried about the sense of FOMO, right? FOMO of what else could I be doing? What else could I be cram? Have you dealt it all with FOMO in your life? And if you have, how have you navigated it?

I think it's tough because FOMO wants to come up all the time. You know, we want to be everywhere in all of our social circles that we're a part of. But I think the same way, like what you just said, it's key. If you want to be able to say yes to your highest goals and focus on them, that that's going to require you to say no very often. And especially with like, I remember the times when I was getting really serious about starting to meditate and I decided that, you know, drinking isn't working out for me anymore. And I don't want to do that.

So I set it aside. But I remember for like a three month period, I needed to stabilize my own comfort and no longer consuming alcohol. So I just didn't go out there. much. So I felt tons of FOMO, but at the same time, at the moment, it felt really healthy and right to just say no to the invitations that I was getting from friends to go hang out at bars or parties or whatever because I just needed to kind of like set up a new way of living in my like immediate environment so that I didn't feel that like need to like grab a drink

and do what everyone else was doing. But there are tons of moments like that where it's like because I really want to put my energy into my highest goal, I'm just going to have to say no to a lot of things. And the beautiful part about that is that life moves on. It's almost like, who are we to think that we are that important that, you know, yes, we play a role. Yes, our friends, you know, might miss us a little bit here and there, our family, other stuff. But life always goes on as it has throughout the history of stuff. People are not. Right? Thank you. always move forward and, you know, it's going to be okay, right? It's, it's going to be okay for everybody that's involved. So when you can pull back a little bit and you're not as reactionary,

which is really what I'm hearing you say. Like when you slow down, the beauty of slowing down is we're not as reactionary to the demands of the world. Because if we're feeling a lot of FOMO and there's a void inside of us, then we open our inbox or we open up social media. And I always say like our brain is like a detective. It's going to go on the hunt for anything that we believe. So if our subconscious, if our subconscious is feeling FOMO, if our subconscious is feeling, I'm not doing enough and look at this podcast, this other person did, it's doing way better. I need to be more on my book tour, promote this product more, improve my career. Then we go into our DMs, then we go into our text messages, then we go into our email,

and we're already sort of pre-triggered. We're pre-triggered to find the pain. to fill that void. And then we look back a week later on and we're like, oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed. I have so many different things that I've agreed to. And yet we were the person that put those things there because we weren't aware of the pain. You know, that's funny. I love that you're bringing that up too because that's something that I try to really check in with myself often is to make sure that I'm not doing things out of agitation because I'm feeling really agitated

inside of myself because something's coming up. I'm not, you know, I don't know, exactly what you're saying, like taking on more than I really need to take on or even like creating or writing when I'm in a really agitated state. Like if I'm, if my mind, it feels a little bit out of balance, actually, that's time for me to chill out and spend some time, you know, either meditating more or just like being with it and letting it pass as opposed to just like forcing that continuous cycle of productivity because like, don't get me wrong, it's beautiful to work hard, but it's also equally beautiful for you to rest and take your time.

That's a great reminder. How do you rest while being in a place of duality where you're a very well-known person online with over a million followers on different platforms? And then also, you know, on the last interview that we had, which people can find in the show notes where we talk a little bit more about your hero's journey and you literally overdosing and being in a place

where that sort of completely changed your life around for anybody who's curious about that after this interview, So you have one end, you have the duality of, you know, being very in the world, regularly publishing content and great content, but at a discipline level of making it regular, which is a big part of how you've grown. And you credit meditation and sort of going inward as being able to provide you with the insight. So how do you set up boundaries in your life to not be overwhelmed and still allow for rest? Yeah. So there's a few key things that come to mind. Like at the beginning of every year, the first thing I do is set aside my meditation schedule

for that year. So I meditate two hours a day, an hour in the morning, an hour in an hour in the evening, but I also go to like multiple meditation courses a year, you know, 10-day courses, 30-day courses, and they'll be like kind of spread out throughout the year. So I make sure that like the part of my life that's most essential that I want to put most of my energy into, which is meditating, because I just get so much out of it. And not just like in a creative sense, you know, more so for my own well-being, for my own personal growth, like for my own development of my freedom. It's done through this practice that has given me so much, you know, immense benefits. So I try to be really adamant about like making that my priority and then everything else comes

after that, you know, like the book tours and setting on my schedule and, you know, all the Young Pueblo stuff. Other than that, I think I pretty intentionally created like the pseudonym Young Pueblo so that it gives me space. You know, I come on and do podcasts every now and then, but my goal is not to make my face famous. It's like it's to try to create a body of work, of written work that people find really useful and that helps them reflect so that they can build self-awareness at the intellectual level, you know, and hopefully encourages them to then go on and find some sort of healing

method or technique that helps them grow even more. But I think that's, you know, one of the key moves that I made that I'm really glad I did was not putting everything under Diego Perez because it just like gives me a bit of space. And even when you go to my Instagram, you know, what you're going to see a lot of is just black and white. You're not going to see, you know, parts of my life. So I try to keep it all very, you know, my life stays pretty private so that I can just like live it and just, you know,

be able to just live my life the way I really, you know, want to without so much interruption. And the other part of it is I set a timer on Instagram. you know, for an hour and a half. Once it hits an hour and a half, it's time to get off. And I, hour and a half, it feels like a lot, but that's because I have to post and put up stories and, you know, check DMs. And, you know, it's part of my work. So I do have to spend some time on there, but I try to keep it at that limit so that I can then go on and do other things. But keeping those things together and not like feeling like I need to respond to every DM and do all of that stuff helps me just keep my mental health strong.

Do you imagine as your life, you have this beautiful analogy of the river, your identity is a river. And so sometimes people listen to somebody and they're like, well, that's easy for you to say you meditate two hours a day and you guys don't have kids and, you know, this stuff. But tell us how you imagine that to evolve in this sort of river analogy as the life circumstances change for you. Yeah, yeah. It's funny because my wife and I have been talking more, you know, we don't know if we're going to have children or not, but we talk about like if we did what that would look like and it would be very different. I think we'd still meditate, but we wouldn't meditate together anymore. We'd meditate, you know, separate. We'd have to, like,

take turns and, you know, so that we can meet all of our householder responsibilities. And two hours a day, it's a big. investment, but it's a big investment that has a humongous ROI, has a huge return. The return is, you know, like I do feel like I put in the time and the effort to be able to cultivate a mind that's less tense and less reactive. But that, you know, even the fact that my reaction, like, I'm not perfect or anything like that, don't get me wrong, but I do feel that the intensity of the reaction has decreased. That lower intensity of reaction has, like, helped. me tremendously. And it would be hard to not feed my well-being in that way because it would just feel

rather foolish to stop, you know, because I'm getting so much out of it. Like how, why would I not take care of my mind and body and health, you know, by doing that? Just like runners high, there's that meditation high where it's like you crave it. You crave it. You want to be a part of it. It's part of you. And if there's any days where it's delayed or it's missed, you miss it. You miss it. And I think that's an important thing is that it becomes, it's no different than how people feel about, like, working out or some other stuff. Like when they miss it, they're not as whole or complete. And they don't feel like they can show up for the world in the best way. It's not the end of the world, but it's like if they miss it a little bit, it's like, I'm not doing myself or anybody else a favor.

Yeah. And I think it would, you know, it's almost, it's funny because it's like a paradoxical because it wouldn't really be like when you're meditating, especially with the technique that I'm doing, like we're trying to come out of craving. So when you do have that feeling of like, oh, you know, I should put more time and I should put more investment into meditating, it's not so much that it's like a craving. It's just it's a goal that you know is healthy for you and that you know will support you and making good decisions. So it's sort of similar to like, you know, like brushing your teeth or showering. Like, of course you're also going to want to wash your mind out at the end of the night. And, you know, so that you can go to sleep and wake up and have a beautiful new day. But it just feels like it comes more from a balanced perspective, a balanced mind that's trying to like, okay, like let's keep fortifying this balance because it's really just informing and improving all parts. of your life.

I have another poem that I'd love you to read. And I don't know if that's the right term, writings, poems, script that you put together. It's page 165. And the reason I pick this one is just, I think it's an important reminder. These are all great reminders for if we want to grow, what are some of the things that we need around us

because we often are a product of our environment? So page 165. Essentials for growth. Proper rest. More learning. Consistent honesty. Building new habits. Letting go of old stories.

Saying no to old patterns. Believing that you can change. Saying yes to supportive people. Examining your emotional history. Finding a practice to heal past pain, making time to build self-awareness. I feel for a long time in sort of modern human history, postmodern world, we thought of spirituality is a very intellectual component. And people don't often give, didn't often in the past give credit to the surrounding environment. A clear example of that was you had notoriously,

again, no judgment, a lot of spiritual teachers. and individuals. I won't name any names, but we're known for maybe not typically investing in their body, right? Not having the best diet, not working out, right? Not doing things like that. Almost in a way, some, not all of them, feeling a little bit like that was beneath them.

The body was beneath them. Really the mind and intellect and the spirit is really where everything was. And I feel like there's a new resurgence on deepening the focus of, yes, go inward. And all these other things that we get a chance to invest in two will make it easier to go inward and make our longevity that much more. And I don't just mean in terms of how long we live. I mean in terms of just the fact that we get to keep on showing up and and, you know, having another app bat to try to go deeper and deeper each and every day. I love to see if you have any thoughts on that, whether you agree or disagree or just anything else you want to toss in.

Oh, I mean, Drew, I couldn't agree more. I feel like there has just been bigger shifts in my own meditation practice, like the healthier my body gets. And I think, you know, it took a long time for me to properly figure out my diet. And now that I have a hold on it and now that I've been able to, like, figure out, you know, like proper portion sizes and just like what type of workout fits best for me. like I didn't know that I was a runner. You know, like, I really like running.

I don't like weight training that much. I prefer a nice slow run for like a long period of time. Doing that four times a week has been like a godsend. Like it's, you know, it's changed my life so much in really good ways. And then combining that with eating things that are really deeply nourishing me and like helping fix, you know, old issues that I've had with inflammation. it's been tremendously helpful for my meditation practice. And similarly, it's because of my meditation practice that I had the energy to be able to make these serious changes in my habits in terms of like diet and exercise.

But I think it's really important because, yeah, you can live for a long time, but like, are you going to live well? Are you going to live with mobility? Are you going to live with an ability to like sit down? you know, I'm a pretty serious meditator. So like, I want to take really good care of my knees and my hips and, you know, be able to actually meditate sitting down for as long as I can. Because I, a lot of the retreats that I go to, there are a lot of meditators who've been doing it for like 40 and 50 years who've been there, you know, just doing this thing for a decade. And to me, it's so impressive when I see someone who's like in their 70s and they're sitting

the whole 30-day course, like on the ground. You know, they don't have to sit in. chairs. And yeah, they've been fortunate that they haven't had like serious injuries or anything like that. But part of that is because like they took good care of themselves to be able to keep sitting. And, um, and I hope, you know, if I'm able to live that long, it would be great to have a strong enough body so that I can continue doing this pretty serious work. Because when you go to a 30 day, 30 day, 30 day course, 60 day course, like you need to be like it even says in the forms like, are you healthy enough to do this? Um, like is this, you know, will your doctor support you because we want to make sure that you're going to be okay because being able to do such a deep

operation on your mind, you're going to, you know, it puts the body through a lot and you come out much better than ever before. You come out with a new sense of equanimity, a new sense of, you know, just clarity in your mind. But to be able to put yourself through such a serious situation requires a lot of like internal mental strength, but a lot of physical strength too. because we didn't chat about it too much, but I think people are curious. You've talked about this meditation practice you have two hours, these 30-day courses a little bit. Just share a little bit more about the modality that you follow and how you found yourself into it. Yeah, sure.

So I meditate Vipasana in the S. Nguenka tradition, and this is a tradition that comes out of Burma, Myanmar. and he, Gwenko, he's a Burmese man of Indian descent, and he basically learned this technique from this other man named Sayyadju Bakin and was able to help spread it all throughout India, and then it kind of burst all over through the world. And it's a technique that has its origins in the Buddhist teaching, which is like 2,600 years old, and you can basically sign up to go to these courses, where you practice three things, you practice morality, you take sort of these vows of morality that are basically the beginning parts of,

you know, you being a monk for 10 days. That's what you're doing in these meditation courses. And you don't take robes or anything like that. You still go into it as a householder, but you, you know, sort of take these serious vows of morality that will help strengthen your mind and then you start, you know, building your concentration for about three days. so that you can actually focus your mind and, you know, keep it on the natural respiration

that's happening all the time that we're often oblivious to. And then you start, you know, you learn the practice of Apasana, which teaches you insight and just helps you observe the impermanence that's happening in the body. And through the observation of impermanence, you're actually spending that time communing with what's real, with this like concentrate that's happening throughout the universe and being able to feel that impermanence helps really just like purify all the that old baggage that's deep in the mind and cleans up the mind real good. So I noticed that it was worthwhile and useful for me to, you know, to do it and to keep coming back was after my first 10-day course that I did back in, it was July of 2012, like, I felt

my mind had never felt better after the course. Like during the course, it was incredibly different. After the course, I was like, whoa, like I can feel all my emotions now. I can, you know, have a lot more love and compassion for the people around me. And generally, my mind just felt way less tense. And I was like, okay, there's something to this. I need to keep going back and learn more. That's powerful. And I think that something we talked about on our last interview was, you know, everybody might find their own different version, but whatever version it is for you, you know, if you're excited to check out Vipasna or some people do TM or whatever it might be, Vedic meditation, just that there is some form of practice that at least you can get a chance

to try because a lot of us have our mind made up about what meditation is and what it isn't. And at the end of the day, it's kind of like skiing. We can't learn about skiing through just reading a book about it. We got to go ski. And it's like. Yeah, yeah. And it's so true, man. It's, you know, I really encourage people, especially if they're, if they feel their intuition

click, like, oh, this is something that I am interested in. Like, go try different things out, man. Do your Google searches. Go find out what technique or what path is good for you. Or even if it's not meditation, maybe you want to try like one-on-one therapy. Like, they're not the same thing, but they are methods of introspection. And I think, you know, that's what's special about today. Like, if you feel that you would benefit from some,

a new degree of self-awareness or some sort of healing, then go do it because that's going to help your life. And it's going to help you just, you know, be a better human being for the people around you as well. But there's something out there for everyone. Yeah, it reminds me of a poem that you have to open up the book. And again, I have it on my show notes over here, so I can't find the page. Actually, I think I just found it. It's the opening one that is right after the contents. It doesn't have a page number, but it's right before the chapter that says self-awareness, and it's called The Biggest Shift in Your Life Happens. Can you read that for us here? Yeah, definitely. The biggest shift in your life happens when you go inward. You step in and observe

all that you find with acceptance. The love you bring lights up your self-awareness. You You start seeing how the past is packed into your mind and heart. Patience, honesty, and observation start the healing process. With time, intention, and good healing practices, the past loses its power over your life. You continue the process, stepping in, feeling, understanding, and letting go. And then you start noticing the results. are not the same anymore. Your mind feels lighter and develops a new, sharper clarity. You start arriving into your life and relationships ready for deeper connection. I love that because

it's that reminder that when we go inward and use going inward as a vehicle for clarity and connection, we're not doing it. It kind of reminds me of like Alan Watts. He would always say, And there's these beautiful poems online and sort of monologues where people have combined them with B-roll and music. We'll link to one in the show notes. But he said, you know, the goal of dancing is not to see who can complete the dance the fastest, right? The goal of playing a violin is not to speed through the entire song and see who's the fastest person or the quickest person to get to the end. The goal of dancing, and paraphrasing here, is to be in the dance, to enjoy the dance. And the other beautiful thing about this is now me interjecting is that the beautiful thing about a dance,

especially with a partner, is to see the beauty of that dance and how two people have to coordinate and work together and what beautiful things they can do when they do that, even if we're at risk of stepping on each other's toes or whatever it might be. And I think that that poem is a good reminder for the goal of inner work is not who can meditate the longest. The goal of inner work is not to have zero attachments in the world and be completely void of everything. The goal of this all is that clarity for yourself and that guiding light of knowing I can trust my gut and also that I can use my relationships for a deeper sense of connection, love, and joy where we can go create beautiful things in the world together.

So I want to thank you for writing that and writing the book because they're, fantastic reminders. And that's what we all need. We just need to be able to pick up a book sometimes, not have forced to be read it end to end, but turn to any page and just read something. And I'm a big fan of a synchronicity. I feel like any page you turn to and you pull up inside the book, there's going to be a message that is ripe for you right now at this moment. So Diego, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, sharing your work with us, providing your insights, your meditations, for doing the hours of meditation that we all get to benefit from as well, too. It's been a real pleasure to dive through and navigate these topics with you.

Yeah, thank you so much, Drew, for having me. And thank you for this amazing conversation. I feel like every time we get to spend these moments together, it's always, it just sparks so much new life into, you know, into old ideas. So thank you so much. You're absolutely welcome. I'll make sure we link to your previous episode in the show notes. But in addition to that, the book is out there. It's out there in the world for people to consume.

You've been sharing snippets on social media. Tell us a little bit of, you know, we know the books available wherever bookstores are, but are you doing anything fun during this launch period or anything interesting for folks? Yeah, I'm going to do three online events. And it's going to be cool because it's going to be one of the places where I'm going to get to have dialogue with. one of my close friends and just for each event it's like another friend of mine that is going to you know we're just going to talk back and forth and go deep for a moment and really connect on different topics that the book is about um so you can join us on one of those events and i'm also

going to do a few IG lives um with different friends and i think it'll be you know it'll be great so it'd be great for you to join us and if you don't have time for those I think just if you can pick up the book and I think it'll be able to just give you reflective material for you to build at least a little more self-awareness in your life and I hope it serves you well. In terms of return on investment, I mean, when we're talking about sub-20 bucks, I think your book is like $1499, not a lot of things that you can pick up for $14.99 that are a masterclass in going inward.

So that is my pitch for the book, clarity and connection. You can find the show notes. The link to the book on Amazon is the best place to be able to pick it up. And by the way, the book is doing great. It's like number 46 in books right now. It's in the top 100. It's making ways. People are sharing on it on social media.

I see it. So congratulations on another fantastic work that adds to your body of work that you've put together. Thank you so much, brother. It's truly an honor. Thank you so much. Diego, aka Young Pueblo, thank you for being on. the Druproid podcast, and I will see you again next time. Yeah, take care.