Good Life Project - Scott Stabile: Big Love.

Episode Date: January 15, 2018

Scott Stabile had every reason to be angry with the world, but he chose love instead.At the age of 14, Scott's parents were killed at the market they ran, leaving behind a family of seven kids. Stabile was the baby of the group, and nine years later, his brother overdosed and died from a heroine addiction.In those years, he was surrounded by a lot of tragedy, addiction and loss. And, he buried it all, keeping it secret through school, until eventually, it couldn't stay buried any longer. His awakening eventually led him into a journey of discovery where his deep seeking for answers and connection led him to San Francisco and eventually into the embrace of a cult, where he stayed for many years.Flowing through all of this was Scott's internal, turned external struggle with his sexuality as a gay man at a time when being out was a very different experience than it is now. Through it all, though, Scott continually found a way to turn back to love. And eventually, he made a choice that stuck, to live on his own terms, no matter what comes his way, with a wide-open heart. He began to share his journey and philosophy through teachings, workshops, and inspirational posts and videos that have attracted a huge and devoted social media following. And, he began to create and write.His previous works include Just Love, Iris, and the Li’l Pet Hospital series. Scott also wrote the feature film The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, an eye-opening experience he writes about in his new book, Big Love: The Power of Living with a Wide-Open Heart (http://amzn.to/2CTUebn).In today's episode, we dive into this powerful journey.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was a Monday morning, I was with my sister, and we got a call that my parents' car was parked outside their market, but the gates were down, and it was well after the time that the store should have been opened. So we knew in our guts something was very wrong, like none of it made sense, and the area in Detroit where the store was wasn't a particularly safe neighborhood. So my sister and I got in the car and we went to my brother-in-law's deli that he had. It was called the Ham Palace. And we went there because my other sister Kim worked there as well. So the four of us waited as my brother Jimmy drove downtown to check out what was going on. And he was the one who eventually came to the market and told us that they had been shot.

To look at the life of this week's guest, Scott Stabile, from the outside in, you would think to yourself, this guy has every reason to be filled with anger and rage. When he was 14 years old, his parents were brutally murdered while working at the market that they owned. About nine years later, his brother OD'd and he lost his brother from heroin. And he grew up in an environment sort of surrounded by dysfunction and addiction and violence and tragedy and loss. And through this, you know, so many people would take that and become absolutely just enraged with the world and be mired in unfairness and stuck. And that is a valid

part of the emotions that we all feel. Scott somehow found a way through it. He found a way to turn around and use all of the pain as motivation to open his heart, to live from a place of just wide open love. In fact, his journey and a lot of his ideas are detailed in his latest book, Big Love, The Power of Living with a Wide Open Heart. I was really excited to be able to sit down with Scott, kind of really go into his personal journey and then his philosophy. How do you go from this place of such profound tragedy and violence and loss and dysfunction and somehow find a way to continue to look at the world as a place of generosity and kindness and lead your way through it with an incredibly open heart and just love.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8

hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday.

We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. It's so good to be hanging out with you today. You too, man. Thank you. So, you know, I was trying to think where is an intelligent point to kind of dive into your stories. Let's just kind of like back up in time a bit. You grew up in Detroit.

Yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. Which suburb was it? North, south, east, west? I was in Lathrop Village. What's the vibe of that? Well, it was really mixed. It was a wonderful place to grow up because when I was growing up, Lathrop Village is this little village that's encompassed by a larger city called Southfield. And I grew up around everyone, Jewish people, black people, every type of person was living in the area where I grew up.

So I grew up with just being really comfortable and okay with all different types of people. And then ended up moving in high school to an area of Detroit that's called St. Clair Shores, which was all white Christians. You know, like they did not know what Jewish people were. I remember having to explain to them about Jewish people. They're just people. It was so bizarre how limited their exposure to anyone other than just white Christian people was. So that was a bit eye opening. Yeah. It is so interesting how certain places in the United States feel like they're just complete melting pots. I think New York being one to a large extent. And other places still seem very ethnically and culturally silent to this day. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I read a statistic years ago, I don't know if it's true, that 94 plus percent of people who are born in St. Clair Shores, that's where they live and die, in St. Clair Shores. And I wonder if that's the truth for a lot of towns in the U.S., which is okay. That's fine. But there's a big world out there to see and explore. I hear you. So, big family too.

Youngest of seven. Yeah. What's that like? You know, I was the youngest of seven, but I came around late. I was, as my mom called me, a change of life baby, which is the euphemism for mistake. And she was, this was in 71 and she was 42 when she had me, which was really old in 71 out of the house. So I really grew up with two sisters, but mostly one sister who's five years my senior. So it wasn't like growing up at that big family, all of us at dinner fighting over food type thing. It was mostly just my one sister and I, two sisters for a little bit and my parents, you know, but I've got a great family

and I'm really grateful for my family that they're, you know, but I've got a great family and I'm really grateful for my family that they're, you know, my siblings are really, we're all very different in personality, but I think the one link or one main link is that we really like people, you know, and everyone's welcome. So anyone who brings anyone to any of the family gatherings is immediately enveloped by everybody. And so many friends have said, God, your family just, you know, makes me feel so at home and comfortable. And it's true, you know, I've got good siblings. Where did that come from, do you think? Like, were you, I mean, as a young kid, were you inviting outsiders in or was the family always sort of hosting other people? You know, my, so my parents died when I was 14. But up until then, yeah,

there were a bunch of characters coming through our home, you know, and, you know, not entirely savory ones all the time. But I would say, yeah, so I suspect that's something we got from our parents. I definitely think, you know, it's funny,, again, I was only 14 loved people. They were really open hearted in that way. And they accepted people. And I see how I am that way as well. And I see how my siblings are that way as well. And I suspect it's because of the example they set. So tell me more about them. Well, about them. I mean, my dad was a big gambler when he was alive. I didn't have a good relationship with my father. I really, really hated him, honestly, as a kid. And

mostly because we had no connection. You know, he gave me no attention and seemed fairly uninterested in my life. That's how I interpreted it as a kid. It was almost like they had done their parenting with the first four. You know, my eldest brother's 21 years, my senior. So that's like 21 years, 20 years, 18 years, 16 years. Those are the first four. And they got the brunt of the parenting. You know, they got the parents showing up at ball games and being active in their lives in a different way. And then the last three didn't. Basically, you know, they were done. So my sister Kim and I especially feel like we, you know, were neglected in that light. So I feel like growing up, I was kind of a mama's boy, I remember. And the other thing is that it's a lot of my memories. I feel like I don't have a

ton of memories from the early days. And I think that's in part because their death was so shocking and tragic. And it wiped away some of my childhood too, even before they died. But I do, I remember having a loving connection with my mother, even though she wasn't the most attentive necessarily mom either. But they were good people. I think that they weren't the best parents, you know, and I've come to reconcile that in my, as I've aged, just recognizing them more as people, you know, and recognizing that they were struggling too, to make sense of this world. And they were doing their version of the best that they could. And it does, and I really do believe that. And so I think especially my dad made a lot of just unfortunate choices as a father, but as a human being, he was just doing what he could do.

So I feel like I'm more at peace than I've ever been around. I spent a lot of my life trying to come to terms with their death. You know, a lot of my adult life was spent when I think about my parents, because they were murdered. They were shot to death in Detroit. So when I think about them, it's always through that frame, through that lens and trying to heal that and make sense of that in some way. And only in recent years have I allowed for more growth around just my relationship with them while they were alive, especially with my dad, and feeling like there's a lot to heal in that world. There's a lot to look at there, not just their death,

but actually what happened before they died. So let's explore that a little bit. So you're growing up in this family, 14 years old, and they're running a local market. Yeah, in Detroit. It was like a fruit market convenience store. Yeah. So take me to the day. Well, I had spent the weekend at my eldest sister's. She and her husband and my nephew were together. And it was a Monday morning. I was with my sister and we got a call that my parents' car was parked outside their market, but the gates were down. And it was well after the time that the store should have been opened. So we knew in our gut something was very wrong. None of it made sense.

And the area in Detroit where the store was wasn't a particularly safe neighborhood. So my sister and I got, I'm sorry, I'm only pausing because this is a very heavy start to this conversation. But here we are. My sister and I got in the car and we went to my brother-in-law's deli that he had. It was called the Ham Palace. And we went there because my other sister Kim worked there as well. So the four of us waited as my brother Jimmy drove downtown to check out what was going on. And he was the one who eventually came to the market and told us that they had been shot. And this was in 85, so it will be 32 years.

What the police report says is that they came in while their one employee had just been stabbed by somebody. And the person who stabbed them was still in the market. And my father called 911. And then ultimately he shot them. And he's been in prison since then. He was found fairly immediately. And that's all a blur. I do remember going to his sentencing, but just it's a hazy. Those months around that time were all kind of blurry.

Yeah, so everything was completely uprooted, obviously, and an incredibly tragic, overwhelming thing to experience. I ended up moving in with my sister, my eldest sister Rose and her family and switching schools and burying it, the reality of it, like really and truly. And I don't credit any sort of consciousness with that. You know, I think there are times in our lives where our subconscious intervenes or divine intervention, call it what you will, however you view the world. But something in me knew to make the choice to put this away for now, because I think trying to settle in that grief and comprehend it and allow for it at that age,

I don't know that I would have been able to in any way that was okay or healthy. So I went on with my life. I created a big secret around my parents' death. I was at a new school. I didn't want anybody to know what had happened. I felt like a freak, honestly. I was an orphan in suburban Detroit. That was not the norm. To not have parents was one thing. To have parents murdered was an entirely other thing. And it was very overwhelming news for people. So I did my best to just make it, keep it secret and manipulated conversations that had any chance of going to family. I would shift them. Really, I was masterful in turning dialogues away from family and shifting discussions and avoiding ever acknowledging

my parents or my family in any of it, which was exhausting, you know, and close friends would eventually find out, which was always a relief because it's, you know, any secrets we're keeping, it takes a toll. And I realized later, it wasn't until my 20s, and I carried on with this through college. I was a good student, a popular kid, went to a good college, good student. So you basically just completely compartmentalized it. Completely. Like once a year, like clockwork, I would have a meltdown cry, but literally just once a year.

And then it would come on again. It was usually precipitated by too many drinks and my inhibitions down and maybe a conversation that happened. And it would be this all out cry. And then the next day compartmentalize again. And from what I recall, there's something I know that you shared, which is that your mom, I guess, had planned to retire, to stop working some four days post. Yeah, it was her last week at the market. You know, I had been begging her to quit because I never felt. I spent a lot of summer days and weekend days at the store working.

And I knew it wasn't a safe neighborhood, even though I had a lot of positive experiences working down there. But I mean, you're working behind bullet, you know, when you're behind bulletproof glass, when you're doing the cash register and stuff, which is usually not a great sign of the neighborhood. But it was, you know, my mom had finally agreed to leave. So this was her last week, which is, I mean, made it all the, I don't know if it made it worse, but it felt like it made it worse. Yeah. So, so you continue on sort of putting this away. Something inside of you says, I'm, this is not something that, that I'm ready to handle in some meaningful way. At the same time, you're also, you're struggling. There's something else that's sort of like deep inside of you. There's an identity, there's a gender identity, a sexual identity that you're grappling with in the midst of all this as well. Yeah, being gay, basically, you know, and feeling that was the other big secret. So being an orphan, but being gay was even a bigger secret. I mean, that was something that wasn't... This was the 80s also, so it's not like now.

It's not like now. It wasn't, yeah, not even close to being like now. Yeah, and this is the 80s also. So it's not like now. college, I moved from Michigan to San Francisco. And that was a really amazing choice. I mean, San Francisco is the gayest place on the planet. So one, I knew that by moving there, I was also making the choice to come to terms with my sexuality in a different way. And when I did move there, I started, well, initially I got a job at a law firm. I thought I might want to become an attorney. And I was very miserable very quickly. I was a file clerk at a law firm. I thought I might want to become an attorney. And I was very miserable very quickly. I was a file clerk at a law firm. And this was my – I had worked all through college and high school. But this was my first foray into the working world.

And I was surrounded by miserable people, like people who genuinely seemed – and this isn't – I have a lot of attorney friends. This isn't a statement on attorneys in general. It just wasn't your path. It wasn't my path. No, and I was like, oh my God, like this is not my life. Like I'm not going to do this. And I watched myself over the course of seven months become increasingly unhappy and anxious. You know, and I'm 22 years old and just moved to San Francisco.

And I'm like, okay, there's a clear lesson here. And I made a commitment to myself, I'm not going to compromise my happiness for work. I don't need to. I'm lucky enough that I don't, I'm not going to have to. And for the most part, I've held true to that in my life, which means I've quit a lot of jobs, and some of them in one day. I've just moved on, and I've been very nomadic in that way. You got to tell me, what was the job you quit in one day, you know, like I've just moved on and I've been very nomadic. You got to tell me, what was the job you quit in one day? I worked, well, the other job I got as a file clerk, because I'm in San Francisco and I'm like, well, I'm working downtown, but I also, I was living in Lower Haight.

And I wanted to have a job in the neighborhood to meet people. So I got a job at the local Blockbuster around the corner and I made it through one shift in the local Blockbuster. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to do this. And I worked in the public library for two days. Yeah, I've had a lot of short lived jobs, you know. Do you have any sense that this I'm not going to sacrifice comes at all from what happened with your parents or no? Maybe, I don't know. You know, I think it's funny when I reflect on that event and, you know, and people I've been doing many interviews lately. So people have been asking me about it. Of course, that's one of the, the sure questions. And I think sometimes

with big events in our lives, like we can look at them and with clarity recognize how we've been affected by them and how that event has led to something else in our lives, a different way of being, a different way of thinking. But I think that there are so many things we will never know. Like I can't even pretend to know all the different ways losing my parents at that age has affected me and influenced who I am. One thing I do know for sure is one of the positives I see is that I don't believe I would be as empathetic and as compassionate as I am today. And I was a compassionate kid. I remember that about myself. But I think that there's something that happens when you endure a great loss and when you've gone through tremendous grief, that you're able to show up for people if you choose to in a much deeper way. You know,

having experienced sadness in that way, I feel like when someone I know is going through something really painful, I can be present with much more depth than maybe I would have. And I also know because, you know, I do a lot of, I think people who know my work, they tend to see me as this incredibly optimistic, positive, quote unquote, inspirational guy, you know, and that is a part of my personality and a part of who I am. But I think that when they recognize that it's not coming from having lived only a charmed life without any pain, that it packs a deeper punch. You know, it's a reminder that, and the thing I also feel is that we've all experienced our own tragedies and traumas. You know, you don't have to have your parents killed to have gone through, you know, experienced great loss in your life. I think that's the story of humanity if you're an adult. But at the same time, I understand that,

you know, my willingness to speak about the more painful aspects of my life, as well as like where I am today and why I'm committed to love and kindness and compassion. I think that it supports that journey in a different way for people. Yeah. compassion, I think that it supports that journey in a different way for people. or sleepy. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me

and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk I'm fascinated by this sort of line of exploration. Do you feel like there is a way to access that same level of empathy and compassion and love without having also gone through the equal depths of the opposite experience and emotion? In my gut, I would say yes, to love and to empathy, because I think empathy,

really what it's calling on us to do, two things. One is if we can really connect and relate to someone's experience, to be willing to sink into the pain of our own experience so that we're able to offer a deeper connection to the person in front of us. But if we can't really relate to what they're going through, I think empathy calls on us to really work at imagining what it might be like to experience whatever it is that person's experiencing. And so, no matter what I've experienced in my life and what I can relate to about your experience, I can always work at trying to imagine, you know, what is your struggle? What would it be like to walk in your shoes? You know, what has your journey been like to the best of my ability? Anyone can do that.

And I think empathy is just practice. I think we're all born, you know, with the capacity for great empathy. But the more we have to be willing to, instead of just responding with vitriol to vitriol, or, you know, instead of just raging against someone who's raging at us, take the time to bring a little awareness to this moment and recognize the humanity in that person. This is still another human being with their story and their struggle. And I think the same for love. I don't think you have to have gone through great pain to be able to offer great love. You know, I think love is, it's everywhere in all of us. And I think for me, my experience around love is simply

about being open to carrying that energy in my actions. You know, and I think anyone can do that. As far as being able to connect to someone's pain, I think if you haven't been through loss, your empathy is one of imagination rather than experience. And I do think there is a different depth to the experience. You know, if I meet people, I have met people who've had a parent murdered, there's a different depth of connection because not many people have that experience to know. And there's a different level of knowing that comes from it. But I think it's openness. I just think if we can show up to connections with people with a really open heart as much as we're able, and with a commitment to be present in the energy of love as much as we're able, there's no saying how deep that connection can go.

Yeah. I wonder, I mean, it sounds like part of what you're talking about is a distinction between sort of cognitive versus emotional empathy, you know, visceral versus understood. Yeah. And I've often wondered, like, can you get to that visceral level without also being able to draw on your own personal experience? I'd love to think you can, but I haven't really seen that quite yet. One of the things that as you're sharing that sort of came into my mind also is I wonder if part of what goes on with us these days is that we don't actually want to access that on behalf of yet another person. And adding that to our ecosystem is something we're kind of terrified of.

I think you're absolutely right. I think we're not even, many of us aren't even willing to open up to our own experiences. I think that this country is so addicted. It's such an addicted society. And it feels to me like so many of us are avoiding feeling anything that's uncomfortable. So we're numbing ourselves and we're escaping from honest feeling. And in the metaphysical world, we're being told that happiness is a choice and that you can just choose happiness and that something's wrong with you if you're not okay. And we spiritual seekers have been in some way conditioned to believe that as well. And so everybody on all spectrums are avoiding just feeling. And I really believe that the only way we come to understand that we have the strength and resilience to be present in our pain is to

actually sit in it and be with it and feel our sadness and feel our rage and feel whatever else is going on without needing to always numb and escape. And when I look around and see so much violence and so much rage, and to me, it just feels like so many people who are unwilling to be sad and unwilling to look at their experiences honestly. So we're all raging at one another and blaming one another because we don't want to take responsibility for the own mess that is alive within each of us. And there is a big mess alive within each of us in my experience. People are as beautiful as you can possibly be and as disgusting as you can possibly be in that full spectrum in between. My experience is that's the

reality of being human for all of us. And if we would just be more willing or could be more willing to understand that and to accept it and to recognize, hey, that's okay. How can I fuel my experience with more love and more kindness and more compassion? And how can I bring acceptance to those parts that are envious and blameful and jealous and that feel gross, you know? Yeah. I feel like we're, we are so mired in either raging or numbing. And because we think that that is the appropriate, that that's the way that we live. That's the way that we feel okay. You know, rather than like what you're offering, which is what if you just felt it? What if you felt it like from the inside out and the suck and the hurt and the pain?

And what if you actually just felt it, you know, and sat with it? Which brings us back to your story because you're living this, you've gone through this horrendous experience. You pretty immediately compartmentalize and shut it down. You numb yourself. So instead of choosing rage, you choose numbness and compartmentalization, which I think is the other side. That's the other choice a lot of people make without even realizing they're making it. And this sustains for years in your life. And finally you find yourself in San Francisco.

How does that armor start to crack for you? It starts to crack when I got a job at a New Age gift shop. So after I quit the law firm, after seven months, I went to New England for six weeks to teach at this literature program through the University of Michigan called the New England Literature Program. And I went on the program as a student, and then I taught at it for a couple of years, and it was life-changing. That was, I would say, one of the first steps to opening up because you're basically, you're living on Lake Winnipesaukee, this gorgeous lake in New Hampshire, and it's like commune living, and you're studying the transcendental authors

like Thoreau and Emerson. And every weekend you're spent backpacking in the mountains. And it was my first time doing all of this. And you're only required to keep a journal. And it was my first time writing in a journal. So it really was an awakening to writing in a different way. So I went to that after the law firm. I returned to San Francisco and got a job at this New Age World Gift Store. And they had an amazing book section with all these metaphysical, spiritual self-help titles. Did you consider yourself sort of a spiritual person before that? No, no. You know, I remember one of the final weeks of working at the law firm.

I'm excited to find this because I typed it in and printed it out at the time. But I remember writing that there's this feeling in my gut that's been swirling around and it feels like it's begging for more in my life. And I remember reflecting back on that writing and recognizing that was the call to the spiritual path that I was about to embark on. It was this opening and this realization within that there's more to life than what I'm experiencing. And so, going to the store, it was like coming home to something that I had never known. I'd never heard the word enlightenment. That was completely beyond anything I had been known. I'd never heard the word enlightenment. That was completely beyond anything I had been thinking about. And I was surrounded by people now who were talking about love as their life goal and enlightenment and being more compassionate, not career and money. And I was loving it. It was like a very peaceful, lovey vibe. And

I was like, this is totally me. I get this completely. And then I started to read more books and I just started to open up. And what I started to recognize was that the wall that I had created around the grief of my parents, the compartmentalization, it had really been a wall also to the deepest possible connections with others because it's all energy. And we like to believe that we can be selective in the walls that we put up, but that isn't really my experience of life. My experience is that if you put up a wall to darkness, you're also putting a wall up to light. A wall is a wall. So once I started to open up and once I started to allow for the possibility of really crying more than once a year and raging, which was precipitated by even before I got that job, one of my yearly meltdowns that just went on for days. And I was locked in my bedroom crying and crying and thought, I'm losing my mind. Like, this isn't how this normally works. So I picked up the yellow pages at the time and did one of those, closed my eyes and pointed in the psychotherapist section and called a therapist and spent six

weeks, once a week for six weeks, which was all I could afford at the time, talking about my parents and crying about them and raging about them. And I think that wasn't, I understood I can talk about them. I will survive this discussion, this dialogue. I will survive the pain. I will survive the sorrow. So that really helped me to kind of ground me. And then I got the job at the store and then I started reading these books and connecting with people who were so open and who were openly talking about their darkness and their shadow side and all of these things. So my life really opened up at that point in a very positive way.

Because when you start on your spiritual path, in my experience, there's whatever that means. I mean, we're always on our spiritual path. But when you become more conscious, I would say, about your growth and healing, I think that life can be very generous because you're awakening. And so everything was very beautiful. Like people were more beautiful than they'd ever been. And I was more beautiful than I'd ever been. And I'm loving everything so much more. And I thought, I like this. You know, this is a path for me. But I think that that is naturally followed by a very different experience. Because as we open up to who we are, and as we become more honest with who we are, we also see how ugly we can be, you know, and you start to discover these things about yourself

that you denied before or compartmentalized, you start to see just how envious you can be. And you start to see how blameful you can be and just how disgusting, really, you can be in your mind and in your thoughts. And that's never a fun thing to focus on, which is why I think a lot of people are numbing all the time, because you don't want to look at that side and recognize that side. But so anyway, as I was opening up in the store, my connections with people were becoming more honest and deeper. And I wasn't creating a big secret about the fact that I was an orphan. I wasn't like shouting it from the rooftops, but it wasn't something I felt like I had to hide, which was a huge relief. My sexuality, I was becoming more okay and starting to tell my closest friends that I'm gay, which is like thousands of pounds lifted off your shoulders. So everything was happening around the

same time in my early 20s there in San Francisco. And what I was realizing within it all is that love is the thing that makes the most difference. And that love, that's the most conscious choice I can make for myself always is to as much as possible operate from the energy of love and to recognize that when I'm not, when I'm living outside that energy, I'm in my head. And that's okay. You know, that's human. But if I'm trying to justify not being loving, that's all ego talk. That's all mind talk.

And that's not, those aren't the choices that I want to be making more often. So it's incumbent upon me to recognize when I'm operating outside the energy of love. And as best I can to shift myself back. And when I speak about love, I'm talking about the energy of love, the thing that I see as the igniter to kindness and compassion and forgiveness and authenticity. All those things are love in action. And all those things, I believe, serve our world most positively. So as all this is happening, you're sort of emerging. The armor is peeling away. The compartmentalizing is dropping away,

and you're starting to feel again all the feels, not just love, but processing pain, shame, pity, sorrow, all this stuff. I don't know if I have the timeline right here, but you get hit again with your brother. Yeah. Yeah. He died from a heroin overdose. That was right at that time as well. That was in 94, which is right when I got the job at the store. It was soon after I got that job. He had been addicted to heroin his entire adult life, and he was 18 years my senior. So basically, he had been addicted to heroin my entire life

until he died. So that was the lens through which I saw my brother, you know, from day one, pretty much, which was tough. I mean, you know, my dad had a gambling addiction, so that addiction was in our household in a very present way growing up. And my brother's heroin different than my parents in great part because some part of me always expected to get a call that Ricky had died. You know, it was, I think my siblings would all say the same thing. I don't think that we had seen him go in and out of rehab so many times and I didn't believe he would ever kick it. I didn't believe he could. I have a very different view of things now. I don't believe that anyone's ever without hope. If they're still alive and breathing, I always think there's a chance that a person can move beyond their addiction or move beyond whatever struggle they're going through. But at the time, I didn't see that

possibility for my brother. So as sad and tragic as his death was, it wasn't surprising. And in that way, it was very different than losing my parents. And it was also, there was a part of me at the time, because I didn't see the possibility of him getting over it, that felt a sense of relief for him, you know, that he wasn't living on the streets and he wasn't in and out of jail and he wasn't who knows what, you know, how he was living, that there was finally peace to that story, you know. But he was a beautiful soul. He really and truly was. Like he was the type that is an instant friend to people and always smiling and a loving, loving soul, but I think ultimately too sensitive. You know, I don't know what was going on in his head that had him feeling he couldn't be present in the world.

But I think that a lot of people who struggle with addiction, they're the most sensitive people. And this is a very intense and overwhelming planet. Yeah, and then you add on top of that the fact that he was already struggling, and then what happens with your parents. Exactly. The burden of that. Exactly. You say that you've changed the frame,

that you sort of see the choice that he made, which is interesting because it's probably a bit of a controversial statement, right? Because what I think effectively you're saying is, you know, originally you saw this as this was his inevitable, like this was just what was going to happen. And he had,

he hit a point in his life where he couldn't exercise choice anymore, where the addiction was him. And at some point it would take him. And it sounds like you had almost made peace that at some point you would get that call. Yet you don't see it that way anymore. No, I mean, the trajectory I went through around addiction was when I was younger with him, not understanding it and feeling like, why is he doing this? Why is he choosing to do this? And then in college, really coming to believe addiction was only and always a disease.

So then realizing he has no control. This is beyond his control. And that's not how I see addiction now. It's not that I don't think substances are and can be addictive. I do, but I also think, and I don't in any way see addiction as a choice because who would choose to become addicted to something? But sobriety is absolutely a choice. You know, people and millions of people all over the world are choosing to be sober. And so there is, I think there is greater power in a person and their power of choice than there is in a drug. And I recognize that makes it sound very simple. And I don't think it's an easy

choice. I think that people who are really struggling with addiction are having to make that conscious choice day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute for some. but we see too many people who are functioning, you know, in a healthy way for me ever to believe that someone is powerless in the face of their addiction. I just don't believe that. I believe there's always the potential to move on from your addiction and live a life without whatever substance or habit you've chosen for yourself or has, you know what I mean? However you came to. I think part of the provocative part of that is the idea that people can potentially read that as victim blaming. Yeah, I hear you. And I think in a

society that we live in now where one of the biggest public health struggles we have in this country right now is like rampant expansion of opioid addiction and a lot of people just saying, you know, please God, tell me what to do and not being able to figure it out. I would love to believe also there's choice in there too. I haven't had the exposure to it and I've done none of the research to really understand. The little bit that I've done, you know, speaks to the difference between behavioral addiction versus actual physiological addiction. Right. And how the physiological addiction actually ends fairly quickly.

But the behavioral addiction is the thing that is brutal. And a lot of that has to do with environment. Absolutely. And access. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And access. And I think maybe it's, you know, can accept the idea that there is a choice that you're making every day, maybe every second of every day, every minute of every day, if that's all you're thinking about. But what gives you the capacity to make the choice that either takes you from a troubled place into a better place, or if you're in that better place, keeps you saying yes to that place and no to the darkness. I don't have an answer to that.

No, I don't either. The only thing I know is there are countless examples of people who are living sober lives, and some of whom I've read many books and many memoirs from people who were like rock bottom, like never imagined they would move beyond. And they did. And when I talk about, so I say that only for hope, because you're never without that possibility in your life, no matter where you are in your addiction or where you are in your struggle. There is always hope that you can shift beyond it. You know, and I also, this is going to be potentially a controversial statement, but I, you know, I read, there's a book called Chasing the Scream. I don't know if you're familiar with it by Johan Hari. And he writes about the drug war and how problematic the drug war has been and how

it's been nothing. All it's created really are a lot of people getting murdered and it hasn't really helped curb drug usage in any positive way. So at one point, he profiles a hotel. It's either in Portland or Vancouver, I'm not sure. And it's a hotel for people who are addicted to heroin predominantly. And they make no judgments. That's the thing. I don't really have judgments about addiction at all anymore. I used to judge my brother harshly, but not anymore. And they have a medical staff there. So if you're staying in the hotel, and they were profiling this one woman who lives there and every day she gets heroin injected into her by the nurse on staff and she has a room there and they're just trying to create a safe place for people who are addicted to be so they don't have to live on the streets and they don't have to steal and they don't have to worry about their next hit and get this diluted heroin that's killing people. And it was really reading this, it was one of the first times that I even understood she'd had a very profoundly

traumatic childhood. And as the nurse was talking about her, she was saying that she has no intention of not using heroin. Like that has been what has helped her survive her life. And when I look at addiction, I think, who am I to judge how people make it through their lives? I don't feel like the only way to make it through life positively is if you're clean and sober. And if what it takes for you to move through this life is to inject yourself with heroin, who am I to say that that's the wrong choice for you? And so I believe that at the same time that I believe that if what it's taking for you to make it through your life is injecting yourself with heroin, there's a lot of obviously pain and trauma there. And that's unfortunate. And I think there is still a

possibility, potentially, I don't know, to live your life without needing to shoot heroin to do so. But who am I to make that statement about anyone's choices? It's a hard issue. Bottom line. I mean, you know, and I'm nobody to have any sort of real and anything to sort of say about it because I have so little exposure to it. But I've known people who have and it is never as simple as the conversation that happens on the surface. Makes it seem. I've known some people who've lost their life. And if you knew their story,

it's just never what you see on the surface. And there were times where I would, you know, walk by somebody on the street and judge fiercely. And my lens now is, you know, they're but for God's grace go I. Like you don't know what they've suffered that led them to try and find some way to cope not not that i'm in any way saying this is great and you know like but it's complicated it's what it comes down to yeah

the only thing i do know is that the way the the stigma around addiction is is terrible and unnecessary and harmful you know instead of instead of looking upon people who are dealing with addictions with compassion, we're imprisoning them and we're not approaching it well. We're not approaching it with an energy of healing. You know, we're not creating a space and a society that recognizes the pain and trauma that goes along with this. We're simply stigmatizing them as weak and whatever else. And that conversation needs to shift. And if I find hope in the opioid crisis that we're seeing, it's just that like anything in the world, the more families that are touched by something, I think the more awareness that is brought to a subject and the more compassion people might be able to find.

And it's tragic that so many people are finding themselves connected to somebody who is addicted to heroin or who has died of heroin or opioids. But my great hope is that it shifts the conversation around it. As you start to sort of emerge into a different person and start to feel and live and connect again and rebuild your life to a certain extent, how do you find belonging as this new you? I join a cult. The logical next step. The logical next step.

Yeah, the logical next step. It's true though too. Yeah, no, that's so funny. So as I'm opening up and exploring, I'm finding myself surrounded by all these beautiful, amazing people, all these big open hearts, and I'm becoming very close with them. And many of them are students of a guru in the area. And it was only a matter of time because through conversations with them, I feel like I'm opening up to this whole new world of enlightenment

and spiritual seeking and all of this stuff. And they were crediting so much of their growth and so many of the positives in their life to the teachings of this guru. So of course, I wanted to meet him. And again, this was a whole new world for me too, just the idea of gurus, spiritual teachers. And so I met him and he was incredibly dynamic and incredibly intense and charming. And I spent several hours with him one-on-one and it took me a year before I called him again. And I think in part because I understood at the time that to choose working with him, it was a commitment. It meant choosing to really be on this spiritual path, whatever that path was going to be. It meant making the choice for that to be the

primary focus of my life. I understood that and that he was going to become the primary focus of my life in this community. So a year later, I found myself writing in my journal every day about him, you know, and dreaming about him. And so I'm like, okay, I think it's time. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch,

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Flight risk. And, you know, being a part of that community was incredibly positive for many years and in many different ways because his path, as he described it, he professed himself to be an enlightened master. So on par with a Buddha or a Jesus or whomever you see as an enlightened master. And he had transcended ego, which is, you know, for enlightenment to me is basically transcending your ego. And so he was just operating out of love. And he was, as he described, a puppet of God. So, we were basically told and I understood that any of the directives that came to me through him were directives from God for my spiritual growth and healing. So, anytime I was in objection to what he was suggesting,

I was basically objecting to my own path to enlightenment. I was objecting to God. I was objecting to my growth. But he preached love, you know, unconditional love and unconditional friendship. He talked about being, you know, being real with your darkness. So much of what was talked about and taught and lived in the experience in that community is what I hold true to my heart today, you know, a lot of it. But what I came to discover was that he, I mean, he wasn't enlightened, basically, you know, what I came to believe. And I really worked hard, you know, it's funny because I'm an intelligent, fairly rational, fairly stubborn and rebellious at times human being. So I don't necessarily, it's just funny how you can get involved in a cult basically. You know, you just do that didn't seem to be aligned with how I perceived enlightenment. But I trusted him, and I would tell myself over and over,

well, you don't know what it is to be enlightened. You are so far from enlightened. How could you possibly know? So just trust in what he's saying. And you're surrounded by people who believe in him and speak of his enlightenment as well. So the narrative is that this is who he is, and that everything he's doing, even when it feels incredibly manipulative or unkind, or when he's lying, or when he's not owning anything as his own mistake, you trust it, that he's always operating

with your best interests in heart. But I had to work hard to get that. I was always battling the trust. And sometimes you'd have long stretches of it. And sometimes I'd be struggling. It takes a lot to put that much faith in another person, I think, especially when at that time, enlightenment was all I cared about. Everything I did was because I want to become enlightened, you know. And so all the choices I was making, it was with that end goal of enlightenment. And he was the person that I saw that was going to pave the way and prepare me for enlightenment. What did you think enlightenment would give you that you didn't yet have? A deep freedom, basically.

And freedom as I saw it was how I experienced my teacher at the time, like freedom to be absolutely who I am in every moment and so deeply, deeply loving that my impulse would just be to love. So there's a sense of peace and a transcendence of the ego. So enlightenment for me meant not being consumed with all this mind chatter, not being consumed with that inner critic, that self-abusive voice who's always tearing me down and who's always tearing other people down. Just beyond that, or so deeply, deeply in acceptance of all that, that it has no weight anymore, you know? And that's what I believed him to be. What happened that led you to basically say, this isn't working?

Well, a couple of things. I mean, you know, it's how to make it into a, it's such a big, it was 13 years of my life, but basically I just didn't trust him anymore. You know, he would, he would say things and do things that just didn't seem loving. And he would, I never once heard him take responsibility for being wrong about anything. It was always that he would take credit for the growth that his students would have, but would never take responsibility for anything if in the negative. It was always just ownership of everything that was good and positive. He was terrified of flying, but wouldn't it, for him, him it was like i'm just taking in the fear of everyone else on the plane i'm not really scared when he was so obviously scared you know

what i mean just no no admission to anything it sounds like the exact opposite of being disconnected from ego it sounds like the like key traits of of hardcore narcissism yeah no i mean really egomaniacal, honestly. Which is so interesting that, you know, like the initial perception is the opposite because he can explain away it as, well, this is just me being a vessel for these feelings from other people.

It's interesting how people will create the language around it that sort of is designed to have others forgive them for these things and almost look at them as a saint in some level for doing this. When you finally kind of realize, okay, it's time to move on. This is not who I believe the person to be. Did that also cause you to question whether in fact it was possible to live in a place where ego was not sort of like the leading thing and to actually live from a place where love was sort of like the defining experience? No, I never questioned that. I knew, I mean, I knew in all those years that my connection to love was paramount to me, and that didn't shift in any way. What I really came to find is that what I was experiencing,

it wasn't unconditional love. And I also came to understand that enlightenment is not an achievement. It's not something we have any control over. You know, I listened to, and that was a very freeing realization, because I had focused so much on achieving enlightenment, and I had connected how I was showing up in the world, and how loving I was being, and compassionate, and all of these things as the path to enlightenment. But you had a great interview with Byron Katie that I listened to recently. And I loved it in part because she's amazing and also because she talked about her, I'll call it an enlightenment experience for lack of a better word. I don't know if that's how she referred to it. But in that came when she was in the depths of depression, 10 years of depression, and she found herself on the floor sobbing or whatever, and then was hit with this moment of clarity that never left her.

And it was such a reminder to me that I think in part, we can do so much to create more growth and healing in our lives. Absolutely. And we're always served by working on ourselves. But in terms of enlightenment or these clear moments, it's like she wasn't doing anything. She was in the depths of depression for 10 years. It wasn't like she'd been on this spiritual journey. And that's how I view those moments often is that that's not something that if we put this many hours into being loving and being empathetic,

we're going to get enlightened. And that was such a huge freedom for me because then I don't think about enlightenment at all anymore. It's not, I don't even care, you know? And what I found is that everything I was doing that I thought would serve enlightenment, like showing up in my life with as much love and as much peace and compassion and kindness is how I want to live my life anyway, just because that's a great way to live your life. And it feels good and it serves people. And so it's not connected to enlightenment, which also helped me move on from this path. And when I did leave, when I broke up with my guru, cult leader.

I did so in a very peaceful way with an email because I felt like he would talk me into staying if I had a conversation with him. And he had the whole community. And my fears were that I would lose all my friends and they were my family, really my closest people, and that I would be punished by God. Which is funny because I didn't even know if I believed in God or what my relationship with God was. But it was hammered into us, you do not betray an enlightened master or you will be punished. And so those were my two big worries about Lee. And so it took me about a year from the time. Which that alone is sort of like this powerful evidence of non-plotting.

Yeah, no, absolutely. But when you're in it, you're in it. When you're in it, you're in it, you know. And so he did my, I mean, I lost the community, deleted me from their lives, you know. And it was incredibly traumatic to lose them all overnight with, you know, no explanations, no connection. But as far as I know, I haven't been punished by God. And I've never looked, this was eight years ago, and have never regretted the choice. I mean, I've missed them all. And when I look back on it, it's still, there was so much love and so much positive connection that came from that experience. But ultimately, especially when I left and the

choices he made around my leaving, it just doesn't reflect unconditional love as I understand it. And it also drops you into a moment where, once again, you have to make a choice. Who am I? How do I want to live? And who do I want to be in community with? Yeah, absolutely. And that was really in the, I write about this in one chapter in the book. And one of the points of that was to really remind people that no matter how long you've been doing something

or no matter how long you've been a part of a tribe or have had a specific teacher in your life, it is always within your power. If you feel like that person or that experience is no longer serving you or your well-being in a positive way, you are always served by moving on. And only when you move on from the things that don't ultimately serve your growth, serve your healing, serve your heart, only then do you create space for new teachers and new possibilities. And it's not easy. You know, if you have a family, you know, and this is where tribes are in all areas of our lives and the families we were born into,

the cliques, our friendships, the religions we're a part of. If you're surrounded by people who are all following, you know, one way of being, and they're saying, this is the way. It takes a lot of courage if you find that this isn't the way for me. It takes courage to step outside of that. But there's a great freedom that comes with making those choices. And also, there's just immense possibility in terms of the new people you'll attract to your life, you know, who are more aligned with the real person you are. Yeah. And also it requires self-love. Tons.

You know, it's funny, I taught yoga for a number of years, and there are these things called the yamas and the yamas, and there's a Sanskrit word, which is ahimsa, which translates roughly to nonviolence. And we tend to look at it as one of the ways to behave in the world to others. But fundamentally, it starts with nonviolence towards self. Absolutely. And I think that's something that sometimes I think we skip over because in a lot of ways it's easier to love or to be nonviolent to others. Yeah.

But to go inside and be like, no, I'm okay. I'm good with me. Absolutely. That's a bigger bite of the apple. Always. Self-everything is a bigger bite of the apple. Yeah, no doubt. So we're 32 years removed now from that horrendous day when you were 14.

The man who took your parents from you is still in prison. You have lived a lot of lives since then and done a lot of thinking, a lot of evolution, and really a lot of work to really connect to this place of love and live from it and teach from it. And do you think about that person at all? And if so, have you explored the idea of forgiveness for him? And can you feel anything resembling love or unconditional love towards him? A hundred percent. Yeah. I forgave him a long time ago and I feel love for him. And I, you know, that, that journey for me was all about empathy. You know, I think empathy

is the path to forgiveness. The way that I've come to view forgiveness is that one, it's a mandate of love. So I don't see things as unforgivable. It's not how I process the world. And because for me to see something as unforgivable, basically what I'm saying then is the darkness that lives in the action of that person is greater than the light and love that lives within my heart. That's how I see it. And I don't see that that's possible. I think that the love that lives within each of our hearts will always trump darkness, no matter what somebody's done. And so, I definitely didn't have that awareness when I was 14 and for many years after my parents' murder. But I did recognize how it felt to think about the man who killed them with hatred and vengeful thoughts. And I recognized the toll that was taking on me. And some part of me understood, again, this was in my 20s as I was opening up, some part of me understood that the only way to rid myself of these toxic, horrible feelings inside about this man was going to be to find forgiveness for him. And I didn't

know how that was going to happen. But I started to imagine him, started to imagine what his experience would be like. I started to recognize that no human being who is operating from any place of self-love and self-worth or feeling that they're seen by this world would ever make the choice to kill other people. That's not possible. And I understood that though I can't relate to killing other people, I can relate to feeling really unloved, and I can relate to feeling really unseen,

and I can relate to having been so angry at people in the world that I wish they would drop dead. These are all things that are human. These are, this is part of the human experience. And I didn't know everything he had lived in his life, but I tried to imagine his struggle. And it was then that something totally shifted in me. And it wasn't like this moment. I don't think in the same way, I don't think we can choose happiness out of the sky. I don't think we can choose forgiveness out of the sky. But I started to notice that by sitting in his humanity and connecting to him with an empathetic and

compassionate heart, that when I would think about him, it was with forgiveness and it was with love. And it was like forgiveness had finally chosen me because I had put in the work. I had gone beyond the rage. I had gone beyond the blame and I had connected to his humanity. And I just see anything as forgivable when you operate from that place. But you have to want to forgive. I don't think things are, if you believe things are unforgivable, you're not going to find your way to forgiveness. And I believe that if you believe in forgiveness, even if it takes you years, you're going to find your way there.

It feels like a good place for us to come full circle. So if I offer the phrase, to live a good life, what comes up? For me, it's to live in act from the energy of love as often as possible. And to repeatedly ask myself the question, what does love invite me to do in this moment? And as much as I can, live my life from those answers. And life is pretty good when you do that. Thank you. Thank you,

Jonathan. Hey, thanks so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we've included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share the Good Life Project love with friends. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action,

that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing.

Mark Wahlberg. You know what the. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk.