Heroes in Business - Andy Hahn Fearless Living, Conversation with Arash Farzaneh

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

Turning unconscious and conscious. Letting go of control. Tuning in to body. Using mindfulness for awareness. Dis-ease. Heal Depression, Self &Universe. Personal story in this episode of Guided Self Healing, Fearless Living with Dr Andy Hahn.

So welcome, and this is episode 58 of Guided Self-Healing, Fearless Living, and our guest today is Arish Farzana, and I was on Arish's web podcast, and we had the most lovely conversation, so he was willing to agree to come, and he said a lot, he's had a lot to share so i can't wait to hear what he has to share and so i'm just going to let him introduce himself and say whatever he wants about you know who he is and what made him choose to want to be here today and given that he's here what he wants to talk about because he said all this interesting stuff is here and we'll just see where life takes us so as they say the floor and the computer are yours so go ahead Arash. Hi everyone thank you so much for for having me here we did indeed have a

wonderful a lovely conversation on my podcast and it's it's it was one of the most impressive ones I've had and one of the longest ones too and still has a record of being the longest podcast I had and it just just wonderful insights that I enjoyed sharing and also receiving from you and I really wanted to be back in conversation with you especially because I've had some new experiences and insights that I would like to share both with you and your audience. And just to let you know, I think I want to actually be a bit pretentious and talk about the self and the universe. That's going to be our topic for today. So let's go for the big stuff. Well, except for the fact that having talked to you, I would hardly say it's pretentious and hardly pretending. The self and the universe, as you know from our conversation

is something that i would love to share with you and talk with you about so share with us what you want to do about the self in the universe and we'll see where it takes us yeah well uh one thing i i noticed too with with myself is that a lot of things that happen to us and a lot of decisions we make, there's actually, we have a lot of say in it. We do have a choice. And the choice, like, ironically, might be unconscious, but the unconscious, we can turn into conscious. So there's that incentive, too, that it's possible to change things. And I feel personally frustrated with people who simply give up or accept the status quo, instead of really choosing a different path. And I think it goes with a lot of us are afraid of change, myself included. A lot of us get trapped in that comfort zone, again, myself included.

But it's so much more once you step out of that, you can see that there's so much more you can do. And I see the connection between if you are truly in tune with yourself and your feelings and who you are, you're authentic, your body is going to be healthy too. And so that health connection. And it's frustrating for me also where people and even mental health professionals or medical doctors do not see that link, that it's all interconnected. I was very happy to see, I think it was on July 20th in Molecular Psychology,

the journal, how they talked about depression is not from chemical imbalance necessarily. There is no clear association between serotonin and your depression. And this is something that I've been saying all this time. And I've also seen it with myself and others. And I think we're moving in the right direction of seeing things more clearly, of understanding things clearly. But there's a lot of hesitation to a lot of resistance from people who, in my view, should know better. I got it. So maybe we could start by having you say a little bit more about when you say you can turn the unconscious into the conscious so that you can make uh you can have more of a say in things but more of a an aware

say in things maybe you could tell us your understanding about turning the unconscious into the conscious and what that means and how you would go about doing it and we'll just hear what you have to say about it yeah um. So many people are talking about meditation, that it's good for you, it's helpful. And it is, I'm not denying that. But I think what we need more is actually mindfulness. And I see a clear difference between the two. And many people don't, but I do.

I think meditation is when you let things come up and your feelings, you're in touch with those feelings. But then during the meditation session, you're trying to focus on something else. And so you're actually building concentration, which is important. But for me, mindfulness is without that mindfulness is like being in that moment with whatever you have, whatever thought come up, whatever emotions come up, and just embrace that or and look at it and be curious about it. And yeah, it will lead you astray, you won't focus on your breath, but who cares? That's not the point. The point is to let it surface to let it come out. And without controlling it, because we do that in our daily

life, where there are many things we don realize, we don't want to look at, we're afraid of, we look the other way. And I think the opposite. Walk towards it. Face your fears. Face those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, because they are that, thoughts and feelings. They're not actions.

They won't hurt anyone. As long as once you notice them, you let them kind of roam free, they will become docile and they will like, it'd be easier to deal with them and, you know, make an agreement. It's like, okay, I could deal with my anger and frustration once I really let it out. But we're in this pressure cooker where we're just like, it builds and builds and builds, and then it explodes. out. But we're this pressure cooker where we're just like it builds and builds and builds and then it explodes. And we see people being triggered and using violence and getting into fights. And we can avoid that by truly connecting with those feelings inside of us. They happen for a reason.

And going back to health, I think it's really like the dis-ease. You're not at ease with your body within yourself there is part of you that is not well and usually often it's the mental health part that's been neglected that we don't look at we're afraid of in many ways and we shouldn't be well first of all it's so wonderful talking to you because i feel like i'm talking to like my brother. It's, you know, we're saying so much of the same stuff. I know the way I'd love to know something more about just how you go about doing it, because I know the way I go about doing it and we go about doing it is we let whatever arise come up.

And when that happens, always there's a body sensation. And so what I have found for me, and I don't know what it's been like for you, I'd love to hear how you go about doing it, that when I bring all my attention, because if there's an emotion, there's a body sensation. If there's a thought that's limiting me, there's a body sensation. If there's a pain in my body that I'm suffering about, there's clearly a body sensation, which is that and any other body sensation that arises when I go there. So the way we do it, and I'd love to other body sensation that arises when I go there. So the way we do it, and I'd love to know how you do it is I just bring all my attention to that body sensation to such degree that like I become the body sensation. And then I just start sharing

whatever comes out of my mouth, whatever I'm experiencing, whatever I'm feeling, whatever images come, whatever comes, I do it that way. how do you go about doing it because I'd love to know just exactly what you do I have it's kind of similar but I have a more philosophical approach to it because I've always loved philosophy my my the question I've always asked myself is why you know and so so why do I have this body sensation why does this event make me angry why does it trigger me and it And it's a kind of a quest of self-discovery to have connection and looking at the links. It's like, this doesn't come out of nowhere. Everything happens for a reason. And I like to go that path. And that's why

psychoanalysis I've been fascinated with because it showed me where to look. I'm not sure that the methods really work for me. And I'm not sure that the methods really work for me. And I'm not someone who I think dreams are important, but I wouldn't go into detail trying to like, overanalyze my dreams and so on. But I do know that I'm angry at this moment, not right now, but at a certain moment. And that's actually gotten less though. It's ever since that I've taken it more in a stride and I've relaxed more for example job performance and I see I'm an instructor I see other instructors just yesterday an instructor who was really nervous because he was going to be reviewed and evaluated and the photocopier didn't work and and I can relate to that because that was me a couple years ago and

I would freak out but now I was looking at him and I was trying to feel what he is feeling and I couldn't because I was like who really cares what does it matter and if if it doesn't go well it's okay and that's in a moment we'll talk about the universe but it in the grand scheme of things whether you get a bad evaluation or not, whether you get the job or not, it doesn't matter. And I think we are taking it very seriously, which is because of our upbringing, our experiences, our childhood. If I lose this job, I'm a failure in my family and with my wife or my spouse and so on. And we overreact and we come tense and it causes stress and that stress could turn into chronic stress which i have been suffering from for for many years but there's a way out

yeah uh well i'm right with you i think we actually probably do exactly the same thing because when you say why and when i bring my attention to the sensation I say what have you come to share exactly your story and it gets unfolded into the story I think you know but sometimes I just ask you know why you're here and then I hear more like it's more like the results of the story like you know so you know sometimes I say you want to tell me your story and how you came to the conclusion that like you're a failure or would you just like to say I'm a failure and like, you know, Oh, that's why you're here. Cause you believe you're a failure. Well, but at least then, at least then, as you say, it's just an experience we're having that we don't identify with at which

point, as you say, none of it's a big deal. I think a sense of humor is really important. And the unconscious has a great sense of humor because it's sending you these messages symbolically it's like you know your leg hurts because or your feet hurt because you you're not standing on solid ground or or whatever once you you you discover that it's just pretty amazing that you know there's this punster and trickster the unconscious that is giving you messages i agree with you completely it's. It's telling you, it comes in your dreams, it comes in your body through sensations and so on. It's like, hey, you know, look at me. And what I find a lot of people just get dragged down, or they actually, in a way, enjoy to victimize themselves. And I've seen that too, where you're kind of like,

you're stuck in that it's like, well, I'm a victim. I couldn't do anything about it. And that's the easy way out. But I think it's really, what do you do with that? How do you get out of it? What is within your control? That's what I sell on. And I think that's more important this is very things and saying hey we all have been we all have been but what what what can we learn from it yeah what what is that lesson there that i i can i can distill into

into into action and i think a lot of us don't a lot of people don't see that that way and one of the things i would like to actually ask you is a lot of people say i want to change or i want things to be different but deep inside they don't and i it hard with that, because it's like we have many people say, of course, I'm going to quit smoking. But I don't see the will there the intention of actually really wanting to do that, because they enjoy it. And they want to deep inside, unconsciously, they want to continue with it. And so I find that uh hard uh if if as a life coach or psychologist a mental health professional to deal with that because the will is simply not there it's just superficial and it's hard to change uh patterns like that um well it sounds like you're asking so i can tell you my sense about it yes my sense is that

pretty much everyone who comes to us has some ambivalence on some level they want to change and they have a willingness to change and on another level they don't and i think it's the holding of both sides of it because people who are ambivalent the more you hold one side of it the more they go to the other side of it that's right the only way i know to do that is to say let's see in my way of being let's see what happens when you allow both the part of you that says i want to quit and the part of you that says i don't want to quit i like it And what happens then when you really allow both of them and either one at a time or their relationship, or maybe you're in a story where, you know, you know, in some imaginal world or some earlier time, you know, you have very mixed feelings about

something and you're playing it out, or maybe there's something about wanting comfort. But as you say, even even the thing you call the lack of will, is something people can experience as opposed to identify with. And then maybe they're in a story where they were totally helpless, and they gave up their will. But that's just they're playing that out in their life right now unconsciously. So even those messages, I think everything is part of the process. I don't think you can step outside of it. So if someone says, Andy, I can't do it. I don't think they're saying it. I don't think our Ash is saying it. I think some body sensation is saying it. And maybe they're, you know, in a guillotine, and they can't move at all. So they're just, you know,

they're literally saying, they say, I can't move, I can't do anything, I'm weighed down, and they can't move at all so they're just you know they're literally saying they say i can't move i can't do anything i'm weighed down and i can't move and it turns out that of course they're weighed down because they have weights on their legs and you know the only thing they can move is their neck because their hands have been tied literally and then they say my hands are tied i can't do anything and what i what what i'd say I think, which is what you said, which I loved, you know, when you say, you know, this whole thing about, you know, I've lost my, you know, I'm not on solid ground, and they're literally in a story where they're in an earthquake, and they're not on solid ground, and then they play it out. So I would say two things. The first is that you can't step outside

of the process. So if someone says, like, I say, I'm going to do it, but I'm not doing it. All I do is I say, uh-huh. When you allow, I say, I'm going to do it, and I'm not doing it. What happens to the body? They say, I feel sick to the stomach. I say, well, it's not you in 2022. It's someone whose name is sick to the stomach, sick to stomach. That's its name becomes sick to stomach. And let's say, why, what have you come to share sick to stomach about this you know i can't do it and everything becomes from my point of view as you talk about about the self and life everything that anybody is suffering about right anxiety judgmentalism comparison

uh compulsion anything it's just something that couldn't be handled and then they identify with it so i think our work is simply to say you're the one who's choosing to be the sensation in my sense right because i think all those things reveal themselves through body sensations whether it's narratives or emotions or thoughts or anything there'll be a discomfort if there's something that couldn't be handled and then i say become it and then you become the one who chooses to be it and then says I'm here with you and I'm bearing witness to you but I'm not you and so I think we're saying the same thing I just make it and I love what you say about not many people listen the way you're talking about because you're listening in the literal right and it's like when I was in graduate school

actually there were two things I remembered I was in graduate school actually there were two things I remembered in graduates from graduate school and one of them was everybody listened metaphorically and I had this like wonderful mentor and somebody once said I fell into something and he said and when you hit the ground how did you land and I said this guy is not listening the way anybody else is listening because he's actually listening to what they say as opposed to what he thinks they're saying yeah and uh that was when I was a third year graduate student so I must have been like you know 24 25 something I said oh my god he's listening to what he's listening to. He's really listening to them.

And he's really listening to the story they're sharing. And it was one of the two most moving things that ever happened. The other was that to say, we don't know anything about our clients. They're the experts. All we have to do is find a way to allow them to feel empowered enough that they can empower themselves enough to say, I have a story to share. It may not be my story right now. It may be my story when I'm a three-year-old kid, but whatever it is, I'm the one who knows

it and there's nothing to fix. There's just something, as you say, to become aware of and to accept. So I think we all have a very narrow filter and it's like things we want things to squeeze into it so it fits into that filter but i think we should widen it and see the other parts so i think the scientific view is great but it's not the only view yeah but it's that that kind of like presumption is this too and people think okay this is the view and everything has to fit into how i see things and that kind of gets me to to the universe which is so much wider there's so much more to our lives and to even the decisions we make in our lives and I can talk about personal experience where I was

pushing really hard to yeah pushing really hard to to receive I was looking for a job and I was like trying really hard and it was very very frustrating again because things I was uh even over qualified for I wouldn't it wouldn't work out and I would keep pushing and pushing and uh it just like got worse I I felt and it's it's a universe saying you what, you just have to accept things. You're not in charge. You are trying, which is good. And maybe you need to be a bit more humble about it. Maybe you need to relax a bit more and let things flow.

And we got the message, but we won't respond immediately or it or they or she or whatever. We will respond in due time. but we've noted your efforts and when I did that suddenly I had five job offers and it's like and I the process was everything was exactly the same it's actually I did less in that time I was like okay well I will be okay either way and And it turned out to my favor. So I think that's important that we forget many things we want. And I've learned it myself too, is actually might not be even good for us.

We think we want it, but we're wrong. And we are given a lesson. It's like, hey, look, this is much better. Please embrace this. But then that's our choice. And we can reject that and keep going stubbornly a path that is uh to our detriment detriment or we can we can switch ourselves and take another path and say okay i'm gonna explore this and maybe this will be even

better than what i had planned myself what i'd had intended, and which often that's true. That is the case. You know, as I said to you before, I just have such honoring of what you're saying. I mean, the only thing I would say to you is, I think with awareness, you came to some awareness and you were able to reflect on yourself. So maybe there was some story you were in at some point

where you pushed and pushed and pushed and nothing worked out and you know you couldn't handle it and then of course life says well we'll keep giving you you know we'll keep giving you opportunities to master that one and suddenly you say wait a second this is not the problem it's the point the point is i've been spending my whole life doing this and now i'm aware that instead of being inside of it i can be you know i can be i can have perspective and say and then i think what you really say is also true which is um we don't know on an egoic level what we want for sure we think we know what we want we don't have a clue and i think it's because the head doesn't know anything i would say our work and i don't know how you feel about this i'd love to know

because you're about you want to talk about self biggest self in life is to say you know who are we really we're life i mean you know if we're i always like this you know the metaphor of cells and bodies the mystical metaphor is we're a cell in a body of a living being called life and if we want to fight life life will say well you know i'm bigger than you are like good luck or we could say what happens when i tune in not from my head with trying to figure something out but from my deepest intuitive knowing and say what do i know is true not what do i think is true or not what do I think is true, but now what do I think what I want, but what happens when I really attuned to saying, what's really something that I

know to be true? I may not be true for anybody else, but it is true for me. And then given whatever I know to be true, what do I desire or aspire to, or even, you know, intend, which is really about the heart saying, now that we have this knowing this like visceral felt sense of something what do we want to how do we become in alignment with that so we wake up and say i'm in alignment with life and that's how i understand these things and you know and when i forget it believe me life hits me over the head with a two by four and says you're stuck again because you're back in some story where you said, I'm going to push, I'm going to push again. Really? You're, you know, we thought you would work that one out. We thought you had gotten to fifth grade,

but you can go back and repeat fourth grade because it's come up in a bigger context and you didn't really fully learn the lesson. So we'll give you another chance at which point that's what I think we talk about gratitude, right? To say the things that we'll give you another chance at which point yeah and that's what i think we talk about gratitude right to say yes the things that we think we're not grateful for obviously are trying to reveal something to us if we wouldn't miss it yeah yeah gratitude is hugely important that and also um i'm kind of a lone wolf i like to do things on my own and this is like my project and so on but i realized no it doesn't work that way I need others I need other people's help and support because I I'm not the only person who lives on this planet and and we can we can take advantage of that of like aligning with with with

people who have the same goals and the same desires and want to to bring about change instead of doing it alone and I think that once that kind of doing it alone. And I think that once that kind of perspective changed, I felt that I was not only much more successful, again, success is kind of relative, but I felt so much better because I can share this with others and they are part of the whole picture. So when I talk about myself, this worked out. No, it's various others who were in the background helping me out and it wouldn't have been possible without their help and support and to have gratitude for that as well as life giving me those wake-up calls and it's like and we we get second chances i i love what you're

saying because we get third and fourth chances until we get it and so i'd say let's get it sooner than later because uh we can enjoy life more in that process i'm with you so you said you wanted to talk about your own experiences and you said you wanted to talk more specifically about the universe and like you started to talk about both but you haven't really fully talked about either and i'd love to know what your journey has been what you've discovered i mean you're telling me the results of what you've discovered but you know a lot of this stuff before so it sounds like even more has come to you and even more about yourself and your own understanding and your understanding of the universe so i'd love

to know what you want to say about it because i'm selfish and i'd like to know i think more than anything we are spiritual beings and i think that that is, is, has really come, come to the foreground where, you know, defining ourselves that things are, there's something much larger out there than, than we think. So that, that kind of filter again, like the lens, like we need a wider lens to, to see things. And I think one of the things really for somebody who would be worried about outcomes who would think like expect the worst what happens if this happens what do I do in that situation and to just like enjoy that moment and kind of go with that flow and we talk about flow in terms of psychology

too when you're in that zone you everything you can anything. You can even control nature to an extent. You can control your surroundings. And I think that is a state that we should strive for, not just specific moments, but my goal is to have it throughout life. of really enjoying it and not being too worried about outcomes. I mean, we had a pandemic and we're doing okay. I mean, all things considered, we did well. And I would have gotten much worse, but it doesn't mean that we should become complacent, but it shows us that we can deal with a lot more than we think. And I'm talking about myself too. When something goes

wrong, instead of being like shocked and overwhelmed and just desperate, I was like, okay, how can I deal with this? And I see it as an opportunity. It's like, I'm that life is asking me to give more and I'm stepping out, stepping up, not out up to, to deal with that situation. Instead of, again, moving out of it. It's like, no, I don't want to deal with that situation instead of again moving out of it it's like no I don't want to deal with it I'll go a different way I'll stay in my nice comfort zone and I'll be fine right I think really that kind of push and I think a lot of people have that they have the discipline but they're just not channeling it in in the what I would, the best direction of improving themselves, of going inside. That's where it is.

Once you deal with the inside, the outside will take place and will take care of itself. But it's the inside that we need to change. And I like to think, again, the glass of half full, half empty. The glass is always half full. It's always there. Don't look at what you don't have. Look at what you have. Be grateful for it. Don't look at what you don't have, look at what you have,

be grateful for it. And then you can get much more. And even in the worst case scenario, you don't get much more, you still have the half full glass. So enjoy that. You know, but I think a lot of us are just focused on things we don't have, we want, but we want, we're not getting. And it's a better way of being grateful for what we have so then we can build on that and the other parts will will fall into place wow um i like what you're saying the only thing i would say is even when we think something is wrong on a whole other level it may have been exactly what was right he just may not have had the perspective you know even even i mean gosh you should say this i mean you know even right before he dies

jesus is still screaming at his father saying why have you forsaken me and like i've done everything i've been a good jewish but i mean you know and then he says i understand they're much larger forces in life is calling for a sacrifice to open up the hearts of the world so like they can kill my body but they're not doing anything to me anyway and yeah exactly i mean that it's not the end of things it continues and so it's just again that comfort zone because we're in this body and this life and it's like i don't want to leave it and of course not but when you do you do and it's just a new experience i think now i've just really like realized that there is so much more.

There is so much more. Like we're not just this life and this body, but we really, there is another door that opens and takes us to a different place. And so when it does happen, I think it will. And that's fine. You know, why be worried or scared about it too? So would you like to share more personally? You said, you know, why be worried or scared about it too?

So would you like to share more personally? You said, you know, since we talked, which wasn't that long ago, and you said like, sort of like worlds have opened up to me about my own personal experience. And I don't know if there's anything you want to share about your own journey, because, you know, you can be an exemplar, even though everybody has their own journey. We all love to learn from other people's journeys even if you know we just learn that it's the off of our own journey so if you'd like to share anything more about yours we've discovered

philosophically personally anyway i'm selfishly wanting to know because like i just i think complete honesty i mean being being really honest with ourselves. That's really the first step. And realizing our strengths, which we often don't see, and our weaknesses too, which we can deal with and which we can handle. And so we like to kind of see ourselves as the hero of the story.

We're definitely the protagonist, but not always the hero of the story. We're definitely the protagonist, but not always the hero. And so we acknowledge that and we can become the hero, but not just simply assume that we are. So once you're you see it from that perspective, you can look at your relationships with others with your with your loved ones. And you say, okay, where is, where am I responsible for this miscommunication or this misalignment? And where is it the other person and, and, and find that, that balance. And one of the things that I've done over the past, like months, especially too, is I've weeded out the people I want to have in my life and the people I don't, and I don't feel

bad about it. I just say, you know what? I wish you well, but I don't think our friendship or relationship or whatever will work out. Again, it might change. Life might tell me like, oh yeah, you're wrong. But that doesn't work for me. And I want to spend my time with people I care about and who care about me and not to pretend.

And I think everyone, my advice would be for people to go, especially the pandemic has taught me that, to go through every single relationship that you have with other people and look at it objectively and say, is this really making me happy? Or do I actually feel worse talking to this person and spending time with them? And if you do, then eliminate them. And even if it's a family member, do so because it's not helping you.

And don't feel like obligated to please others. And that's people pleasing has been something that I've been struggling with in the past. But now it's okay. I would say no. And again, there are no hard feelings. If you want to see it that way, that is your choice. No, but I'm okay with it. Either way, it's just not working for me, or it is. And then once you talk to the people and say,

I want to spend time with you, they really know that I want to spend time with them. And they appreciate it so much more than just seeing as an obligation like oh I have to call this person to say happy birthday but I don't feel like it and so on I think again complete honesty and uh in our relationships and often I found when I tell people that I don't like them I end up liking them after that because then it's like I feel like okay we've established and they probably like me too even though we don't get along. And I think that is important to really spend time with people who are worth your time, who value you and who you value as well.

Well, of course you'll get along better because if someone could be there with you when you say to them, I don't like you and they could receive you without being defensive or without attacking or without like saying oh there's nothing wrong whatever it is they say but just say like I'm here with you if you want to tell me about that of course I'll listen and of course you're going to be more intimate with them oh my god because you're telling them the truth and they're receiving

you and then you can receive them back you know it's the uh unfortunate thing of course is that it's usually the people we're closest to where that can be the most challenging because of course we always feel like we're in harm harm's way and they can destroy us if you know you know they abandon us or reject us or do whatever and it's like in theory of course philosophies that well of course they're not doing that to us. But often, too, when I say I don't like somebody, I realize that actually, I do like them. It's just like, you know, I maybe choose not to spend time with them, but it's still, again, not a dislike. And so when we look at those dislikes, too, why we don't like certain people, we realize, like, actually, no, they don't bother me. It's just, again that's something that triggers in

me that makes reminds me of somebody else that i didn't like and it just kind of creating a different relationship or is changing it and also while others where you say okay we just don't align right and we see it with couples too like you know we're different and that's okay each one is is different in their own way it just doesn't match there's no alignment there i think i think that's really well i think you're making really good distinctions there's a distinction between reactivity right which is always about trauma if you're being judgmental of somebody that's always a statement about this stuff but then there are preferences i mean you know i don't like beats I like beats I I'm not judging the beats but I happen not to like beats you know and then there's of course as you say values questions that you

know sometimes we just don't align because philosophically or whatever we just you know we have different journeys and different paths and so I think making that distinction and saying whenever it is that I know that i'm judging someone then i know it isn't that i don't like them there's something in myself that i haven't accepted and you know and i'm in some way uh putting some something else on to them because why is there any reason to judge anybody we're're all just the same, you know? So I love your distinctions. And I think this is happening too, like political division and so on.

And I see like, I see people are good. They want the same things, but it's just like being sidetracked and hijacked by these thoughts. And it's like, oh, I have to conform to this point of view and so on. You can disagree with each other and still be friends. And I've

always had like a wide mixture of friends when I was in school too. I had everyone from the nerds to the geeks, to the goths and punk rockers. And I'm fine. It doesn't matter to me. I don't really, I'm not sidetracked by that. I just look at the person and say, oh, there is a connection there. Now you might have a politically different point of view. Okay, let's not talk about that if it gets us riled up. But there are other qualities that they have too. And I've seen that. But we just compartmentalize them and see just one aspect of them.

Again, that filter. It's like, oh, you're either with me or you're not you either share my political ideas or you don't and in reality is is really the wide spectrum of lots of colors and uh we talk about the gray i think it's just just much more colorful and who cares if you disagree with me politically who cares in the grand scheme of things we are many things we have many things that we have in common we want the same things and let's let's like look at that again the glass is half full don't worry about the other parts and uh i i don't think we we really resonate well with with with other people and uh and this is my personal experience too like accepting people

listening to them right listen to and listen to what they have to say and i don't most of it i would disagree with in some cases like there's a point yes you're right about this you can't always be wrong and you can't be wrong in everything even if you know you're extreme there are certain things that you say i can relate to that let's let's like get into that let's take a look and opinions change people think like once you have an opinion or a political party you always stick with it no i mean i can switch and flip-flop uh because that's like my experiences are taking me in a different direction or i see things differently and not just having to like stick to one i don't i like to think outside of

the box and i don't want to be put in that box and say, this is who you are, this is how you are. No, I'm not. Tomorrow I might be different. I might change my mind. That's the choice I have, the freedom I have. What's wrong with that? Obviously nothing, unless someone tells you there's something wrong with it, at which

point you'll probably say, well, that is a perspective. I happen not to share it, and I wish you well, or something. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to choose to spend my time with you, but you may be right, well, that is a perspective. I happen not to share it and I wish you well or something. I don't want to choose to spend my time with you, but you may be right and I could be wrong. But in my world, I have to be committed to this way that says, we're not going to stay in this box. I think we can be so much healthier. There are a lot of people who have issues

and I think it's very common to have mental health issues as well as physical conditions and so on. And I myself, I mean, I talked about, I used to be obese and now I am in, I'm slightly overweight, but I'm going there. It's improvement. It's steady improvement. I used to have sleep apnea, which I don't have anymore. I used to suffer from high blood pressure, which I don't anymore. And there's the last thing, my cholesterol and diabetes, which in a couple of months, I'll have a test. And I'm pretty confident that that has gotten better. Because those are your body is telling you something like your blood pressure

is high, because you're always tense, because because you're always stressed and once you get rid of that toxic toxic chronic stress you can relax and i i've seen it when my my physician would take my blood pressure she's like oh you're fine two months ago you weren't what's your secret and it's like it's's really that. We are an integrated whole. It's not just the body's on its own. It's like, okay, deal with that thing. The issue is your blood pressure, medication for that, this for this. No, and we're seeing it with depression

because it's not just serotonin or this or that or lifestyle changes. There's much more that we can do and should do to address the whole, to look at the big picture. And I want people, and this is my passion because it's worked for me. I'm the guinea pig myself. I experimented with myself. And I want to share those results with others because it will work for you as well. I'm very sure in different ways, but it will, or at least it won't cause harm. You can give it a

try. If it doesn't work, that's fine. Go stick to whatever is working for you, but I'm pretty sure that it will. All right. So like, let's finish the content of this there, unless there's something you want to say as a way of completing, well, what do you want to, what do you want to share with us about what you've discovered about depression? Teach me and teach us. I think that it's just like not connecting with what you want, who you are, what resonates with you. So for example, I see people who complain about their jobs, for instance, and it makes them, they don't want to do it. They don't want to go. And I think, okay, well, that might be maybe like you need to change your perspective, or maybe that

job is not really meant for you. Why are you choosing it? Is it something that you feel like you have to do for the money? Or is it something that you truly enjoy? And if you do what you enjoy, the money will take care of itself. Don't worry about that. So I think that and then also with the the person you're with, do you truly connect with that person? Are you happy or not? Is it just simply, I want to have a family or do I really, really want to have a family and enjoy every moment with that? Right? Is it something that you want to tick off the box or it's something that you really want to do? And I think that is hugely important because once you make decisions based on your true feelings,

what you really want to do, then you don't have to worry about anything else and you enjoy it. But I would say actually most people out there are mildly depressed, anxious. We have different levels of anxiety. I don't see it as a condition or an issue. I see it as life, as normal human life. But the issue is, the question is, how do we deal with it? How can we get better at it?

People who are shy. Many people say, don't judge them. They're shy. That's who they are. It's like, I don't think they choose. I don't think they want to be shy. It's okay. I have nothing against it.

But I know myself. I was shy because I's okay. I have nothing against it, but I know myself, I was shy because I was afraid. And once you deal with the fear, then, you know, you, you, you do podcasting and you talk to people and you're not scared or worried about that. And I feel so much better that way. I could go back to being shy, but then this would have never happened. This conversation would not have existed. True. Well, let me get a little just information for our audience because i want to support you anyway and so first of all tell us where in the world are you literally like where do you live i live in vancouver canada i

thought you lived in vancouver tell us just tell us a little bit about because you you've said what you do but um i literally don't know how much you do working with individual clients, how much you do teaching. And I want to support you, but like, I want people to know what it is you literally do. And if you want to say anything more about literally what you do when you are with a client or if you're teaching a class or if you're whatever you're doing, tell us and brag. if you're teaching a class or if you're whatever you're doing tell us and brag but tell us I mean tell us really what you do like so people would know what they'd be getting if they came to see whether it was as a client or as a student or whatever teach us well um one of the things that I generally do is I I love languages so I I've been teaching languages and I speak five different languages so so that's something that I've always enjoyed.

And I went into teaching, but it's because I can sense that I can help people and touch them on a much more profound level. I have a blog that I've been writing on and musing about. And really, it's more a journal than a blog, just like, and it's called Arash's World. So it's part of all aspects of my world that is in there and things that I'm fascinated with things that I struggle with and so on and it's like a journey of like a dozen years that I've been documenting. I also have my podcast which I love because I get to to talk to people I enjoy promoting their work. At the same time, again, engaging with them.

And I would love to help people in any way that I can. And so I think that is where I'd be at. So if people can just take a step and try out and see, come and talk to me, or how can I help you? And I had a few people who I've had coffee with, they said, I told them what the issue was. And it felt like after that, they felt like this great sense of relief. And it was just really like, you know, an hour or two hours. But I made a difference in that person's life. And they're going to see the world differently. That's a success story. Now, whether they want to continue to go in depth or not, doesn't matter, but that's what I would like to, to transmit to others. And, and hopefully maybe

even do like engagements and go and speak at, at places at conferences, or even teachers, I can tell them how to relax a bit more instead of being always stressed with their students and so on from my own personal experience and finally also my different cultural experiences I think have really brought my perspective I was born in Iran and and actually I I feel quite good about now because I can say that without feeling bad and I grew up in Germany and and so when you feel like excluded or I felt excluded at the time and now things are changing it's like yeah I'm from there and I'm actually proud of it I'm happy I was born there it didn't choose it it just happened wasn't personal choice or perhaps it was I don't know but that's that's where I was born but I grew up in Germany so I also know about the German culture I married a Mexican woman so I I know

Spanish and I know about Mexican and Latin culture and so and and Canadian so we this this wide perspective I can relate to pretty much anyone because and I don't identify with one culture right for me it's like a mosaic of different parts I love all of them parts of all of them so uh that makes me I think quite good to understand others and to see issues from a different point of view instead of the the usual way or the theoretical point of view or academic one I think there's a wider range here. So I can really help and to, you know, give advice that hopefully will help others. That's wonderful. So Arash, tell people exactly how they can find you, whether it's email or if you want them to call you or your website, give us the exact. Yeah, so it's Arash's World is my blog,

which I've been keeping up for many years, as was Arash's World podcast. So that is then specifically the podcast that I've done. I've done about 70 something podcasts now, which is great. It's going towards 100. And those would be the main thing. I also have a rashes world podcast as a, as a YouTube channel. So people can see previous

interviews that I've had with yourselves included. And apart from that, they can email me too. And you can find the information on my blog, but it's for you blues at hotmail.com um by the way the emails i had other emails that are more professional and that include my name but this one started because i i want to share this brief story because i i liked a girl and i create this email for her and for you blue is the song by the beatles but i had blues because i was pining for her at the time as an undergrad and i gave her she was the first person who received that invitation i was hoping she would uh send me an email she didn't she never did but that email persisted ever since others come and go but that one is always there so yeah for you lose three words and

at hotmail.com that is so wonderful well listen Arash I'm so glad we found each other again and you said you wanted to you know stay in touch and I will tell you you know taking what you said you know there aren't a lot of people that i stay in touch with and it would be an honor and uh a pleasure to do that with you same here same here i think you're doing great stuff and any way we can support you you know if you are i mean i can certainly you know a lot of people will hear about you at least i don't know if they'll watch us but at least you know i have a i have a fairly large platform between all my social media and my emails and everything and everyone will know your name yeah if they open any of this stuff

i can't i can't force them to open it you know but if they do they'll know about you which is a nice problem if they do they'll know about you that can go with for you blues i like that that's very a little bit more of their part anyway so this has been a total pleasure and uh you know it will be coming out soon and uh i will of course send it to you i'll send it to you right now in fact so you can have it and uh we will continue our conversation for sure and i will commit to making that happen thank you so much for having me for all your support. Thank you. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. So having said that, we can stop this.