Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #76 Erick Godsey
Episode Date: March 4, 2019Four time AMP veteran Erick Godsey graces us with his debut appearance to the HOH podcast. Erick has wealth of knowledge and is known for his deep studies into Carl Jungs works and often called the co...mpany psychologist. Recorded back in December, we recap 2018, the human psyche, plant medicines and the ego. Connect with Erick: Website | https://www.erickgodsey.com/ Instagram |https://bit.ly/2Tm7X6q Twitter | https://bit.ly/2EpYm4R Go For Your Win |https://bit.ly/2xlaMYp Show Notes Erick on the Aubrey Marcus Podcast | https://bit.ly/2GUmwIK Steve Angelo Ft T.D jakes Rejoice | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deo_Cq5Hbd8 Ian “The Lege” Desmond | https://bit.ly/2CCDurE Connect with Kyle Kingsbury on: Twitter | https://bit.ly/2DrhtKn Instagram | https://bit.ly/2DxeDrk Get 10% off at Onnit by going to https://www.onnit.com/podcast/ Connect with Onnit on: Twitter | https://twitter.com/Onnit Instagram | https://bit.ly/2NUE7DW Subscribe to Human Optimization Hour iTunes | https://apple.co/2P0GEJu Stitcher | https://bit.ly/2DzUSyp Spotify | https://spoti.fi/2ybfVTY
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All right, we've got an amazing guest on the show today, Eric Godsey,
who is somebody I work very closely with here at Onnit.
He is, I guess he'd be the fucking company psychologist.
He's the company dream analyzer.
He's well-studied into Carl Jung.
Just a wealth of knowledge. Probably one of the most dialed-in dudes I've ever met in his 20s. He's not 30 yet, right? Yeah, I think he's in his
20s. So just fucking phenomenal. I love being around him. I love talking to him. This podcast,
we actually did back at the end of the year in 2018. And it was supposed to be released on New Year's
in tandem with Godsey's own podcast to help promote him.
He ended up putting his podcast on hold.
And so here we are in March
for Godsey's first release on the show.
But we talk, I mean, we do like a year-end recap
and all that stuff just to reframe the fact
that I thought this was going to release on New
Year's. Outside of that, I know you guys are going to love this podcast. It's dope. Let us know what
you think. Thanks for tuning in. Human Optimization Hour podcast with the legend, Eric Godsey.
Godsey? Don't feel comfortable with that title, but I'll take it.
I'm going to fucking- Legend and training.
I'm going to graduate you up to legendary status.
Some of my all-time favorite podcasts on the Aubrey Marcus podcast have been with you as the guest.
Wow.
Thank you.
You just finished up five things you must do before you die.
Is that correct?
I can't wait.
I mean, that was a beautiful write-up.
I can't wait to listen to that one.
The game of life.
It was fucking one of the dopest podcasts ever. Thank you, man. It's so true. This is the fucking ultimate video game
that we're in. Yeah. And I'm grateful that Aubrey asked me to come on the podcast and he has amazing
outlines like that ready. And it's just like, it's like a softball pitch and just... So thank
you, Aubrey. Yeah. Well, there's no outline here. So don't expect that kind of shit. Hey,
how dare you? It will be fire.
It will be fire.
We're going to do, so for the listeners here, Eric has a fucking brand new podcast coming out.
The Myths That Make Us.
The Myths That Make Us.
It used to be called the Metaprogramming Podcast, but Aubrey was like, that's stupid.
No one will know what that means.
Yeah, that's Garboz.
That's out.
Heard.
It's out.
All right. So the Myths That Make us will have part two of this conversation we're gonna roll for
about two hours might take a little potty break in between see and um yeah so you'll hear it first
here if you like what you're listening to you're gonna go over to my boy eric godsey's brand new
podcast the myth that make us the myths yeah plural make us yes sir and then you'll get part Eric Godsey's brand new podcast, The Myths That Make Us. The Myths. Yeah, plural.
That Make Us.
Yes, sir.
And then you'll get part two of this wonderful podcast to continue on.
And hopefully you'll hit subscribe and leave them a five-star rating.
No pressure.
Because we all love that shit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So let's talk.
I'm sure you went over this a little bit on the Aubrey Marcus podcast, the first one you're on.
But how the fuck did you get here to Onnit?
Because we work together now, and you're my brother, but let's get a little background.
So the long version is one day I was born, and it was January.
No, I'm joking.
But essentially, the first podcast I ever heard, so when I started college, I thought I was smart.
And then my first class, it was a biology class started college, I thought I was smart. And then my first class,
it was a biology class in college, punched me in the mouth. And I recognized that I could argue
with teachers, but I actually didn't know shit. And I started smoking weed and started really
getting introverted because I realized that I didn't know what the fuck I was doing in the world.
And eventually I found podcasts. And the first podcast I ever found and the first podcast I ever found,
the first podcast I ever listened to was Joe Rogan and it was the first time Aubrey was on Joe Rogan
and he was talking about doing ayahuasca.
I didn't know what the fuck ayahuasca was.
I didn't know who Joe Rogan was.
I didn't know who Aubrey Marcus was.
Listen to that and then that made me a fan of Aubrey
for a long time and I listened to podcasts
and I followed what he was doing.
And three years ago, the day after I got fired from a bullshit job that I hated,
that was destroying my soul, but it was enough to pay the bills.
Sweet destiny.
Yes.
The day after Aubrey launches his first iteration of Go For Your Win.
I bought it.
It's the first thing I ever bought online.
It's like the first chorus I ever bought. I thought I was above marketing and above buying shit. And I thought it was gross
to try to sell anything, but I was young and stupid. But I bought the course, went all the
way in, was always responding to what was happening in the Facebook group, was just really trying to
figure out what the fuck I was trying to do with my life. And I really engaged the course. Long story short, met him at the
graduation. He was like, hey, are you that dude that's always writing in the Facebook group? I
was like, yeah, that's me. He's like, dude, thank you. It's great content. And then I applied for
basically the lowest level job on the AM team. And he hired me on site because he recognized the name. And then it's just been
grinding 10 hour days every day, but I fucking love it. And now I'm here.
There's been some sweetness in there though too, right?
So much.
We had the amazing trip to Peru.
Yeah. Life-changing.
You have not broken down your Peru trip yet.
Dude, it's long and massive. So for people who really want to know, I wrote like an
18,000 word trip report that's on my website that will do it more justice than I could possibly do
linguistically here now. Let us link to it in the show notes. Yeah, because it would take two or
three hours to really kind of cover the basis. But long story short short my takeaway lesson from peru that don howard symbolized in front of
everybody on the second day of wachuma is he looked at me you know how he does before he gives
you the medicine and he pointed to his head and he slowly shook his head no and he pointed to his
heart while he's making that godlike eye contact with me and he points to his heart yeah and he's
just like and that symbolized
the you were nodding your head in approval yes that's what he was doing they didn't pick that
up on the audio so i wanted to make sure that thank you thank you you are the legend and that
was my takeaway from peru was i know how to be in my head i don't know how to be in my heart and I'm trying to learn since then
to be in my heart
yeah
that's fucking good
you know I like
like Eckhart Tolle says
these are all pointers right
it's not actually God
it's just a pointer to the thing
that we're trying to see
yeah
you know and
that's such a direct pointer
when you go from pointing to your skull
to pointing to your heart right
and there's so many times where I think like a direct pointer when you go from pointing to your skull to pointing to your heart, right?
And there's so many times where I think like, how do I cultivate compassion? Especially if I'm in an argument with my wife and I get triggered, the thorns come out and I'm not receiving her pain.
I don't understand what she's going through because I'm worried about the way I look or
if I'm right or wrong or how I get out of this situation
instead of just being there for her and listening.
Yeah.
Right?
So like that cultivation of compassion, it doesn't happen from trying to be more compassionate.
It happens from being in your heart space because then you feel it.
It doesn't come from books.
It doesn't come from watching lectures.
It comes from interacting with humans in situations that I don't feel comfortable,
where I can't be in my head. I can't be in all the things that I've learned. I have to listen to my animal body in the moment. And like, for me personally, that's like dating. Like that's
where I don't have a lot of experience where I can go and be with the dynamic nature of a woman,
just there in front of me and trying to navigate that without using my mind.
You know, like, so that's really what I've leaned into since Peru
is doing the things to cultivate the energy in the animal body.
So like working out and trying to eat right.
And then just dating and trying to date honestly.
Because for people my age, the way we date is we lie,
we fuck, and then we don't text back.
And it's garbage.
And I'm trying to tell the truth,
share orgasms, and learn.
That's a fucking good protocol you got there.
Yeah.
I like that.
Yeah.
Sharing of orgasms is always great too.
That's not typically common for ladies to experience those things. I'm so sorry. your age yeah it's okay you don't have to apologize you're one you're
a one percent yeah i'm apologizing to women for most men on behalf of the other men yeah um fuck
so you're here now where do you see i mean it's stupid i i can't stand when people are like where
do you see yourself five years like this fucking place could be gone in five years.
And I think that's one of the things that makes it so special is that, you know, I got here a year ago.
It was like somebody just towed me in.
Like Laird Hamilton was on the jet ski and towed me into a fucking wave.
And I had no idea how big the wave was going to get until I was on it coming down.
Like, holy shit, it's a tsunami.
And that's really what it feels like here.
But especially, you know, I guess we could say you're a part of the inner circle, you know.
So, like, when you're included in things like Peru and these different transformative experiences, it just makes the entire thing better.
Yeah. just makes the entire thing better yeah you know like there's no way to really say like it's not a
job you know like when we're this close with aubrey and he's that close with us like it's more than a
job and um it's it's been fucking awesome having you here we've had the experience of dropping in
together yes we have uh multiple times yeah and outside of peru um definitely want to take you through the penis envy.
For sure.
You know, for people that don't know what that is, it just sounded really, really homoerotic.
It is a strain of mushrooms that happens to be the most potent.
And you can Google it. I think the McKenna brothers created the strain, but it is absolute magic.
And I don't mean that in like a magic mushroom sense that pisses
off people like paul stamets i just mean that in like a very there's no way to understand that
until you go through it it's beyond language yeah and even among users of psilocybin like and i had
a wealth of knowledge and experience with psilocybin until penis envy and was just like
what the fuck is this yeah like it's
just a different level and to sense the question that i could tell that you were asking at the
beginning is like where do i see this going um what i like what i'm personally obsessed with
is trying to understand human nature as deeply as i possibly can and for me like right now i'm
reading carl jung's collected works that's kind of my i'm climbing a mount everest every day before And for me, like right now, I'm reading Carl Jung's Collected Works.
That's kind of my, I'm climbing a Mount Everest every day before work for two hours.
And that's kind of like where I'm at right now.
I would like to use the podcast as a vehicle to interview both experts on human nature
and any human, because every human is an expert on their human nature, and they might not
be able to articulate it,
but if I can be a good interviewer,
I can bring forth the truths of human nature
through them in every podcast.
So I would really like to make the podcast
a solid piece of what I'm trying to do
towards understanding human nature.
And then what I think I offer Aubrey
as a part of like my job here is
I try to bring an
organizational pull to the information and to link it to people and ideas that are easier for people
who aren't as far along as Aubrey to grasp. Because he's got such a deep understanding of
the ideas that he talks about that people who haven't even started into the forest of their hero's journey just sees the echoes you know like way down in the forest
and like what do i do what do i do you know and so just continuing to help him like create dope
content and make it accessible to the people who are just starting. That's kind of what I see. And of course, doing drugs with my friends
and my brothers and my sisters.
Yeah, I think so.
I think in any level of mastery, right?
And then they talk about this,
especially with regards to black belts in jujitsu.
There's a mastery of the basics, right?
And there's a return to that over time.
And we've even done that,
not to fucking promote more on it stuff, but that on at six, right? That's a return to that over time. And we've even done that, not to fucking promote more on it stuff, but that on at six, right?
That's a return to the basics, a return to the basics of body weight training.
Because even if you power lift, you're a professional athlete or you run hill repeats, you can do all this shit.
It's still good to be reintroduced to how your body moves in space.
Right.
And I think so much of that pertains in what we're doing, both, you know, you on the
psychological side and really giving people the mental and emotional and spiritual context to
which to put Aubrey's teachings into. And for me on the physical side, which also ties into the
mental, emotional, spiritual, but it must be broken down in a way that's palpable for everyone, right?
Mind Pump told me that when I first started podcasting.
Like, be careful if you talk about God.
Be careful if you talk about this or that
or a drug no one's ever heard of before
because ultimately you want your message
to hit the lowest common denominator.
And if it doesn't, you're going to miss the fucking boat
because you might speak very clearly
to 10% of the population,
which is listening to podcasts, which is also a much smaller percentage of the actual population, right?
So you don't want that.
It doesn't mean you make your podcast watered down top 40 bullshit, mainstream crap, but to be able to explain things in a way where people understand is critical. And I think that also what I try to bring to that same way of thinking is you are responsible for the audience that you attract.
And so if you're there just for the money, you're going to attract an audience that you don't like.
And that to me feels like a type of hell as an artist. If I've created a product or art that has attracted an
audience that I don't like, fuck that life. But also, we live in a world where we have a meat
suit and it has to eat. And if you have no audience, that's not the right way forward either.
And I think an idea for artists, because a lot of artists are like, I don't want to do it for
the money, man. I don't want to do it, blah money man i don't want to do it blah blah it's like if you truly have something that can help people you owe it to the world to
find a way to articulate it in a way where the most amount of people can have access to it
if you don't do that because you don't want to break your story of what an artist is you're an
asshole because you're keeping your art from hundreds of thousands or millions of people so
fuck that noise but also don't be top 40 radio dj bullshit yeah yeah yeah you gotta speak your
truth yeah fuck yeah we are getting close to the end of the year even though this is gonna go um
there's a fucking song i want to play i don't even know can we sample shit ryan
i don't know that we can sample shit i don't think we can
maybe we'll add it at the end it's called rejoice by steve angelo and it's uh it's kind of like um
an edm song it's electronic but it's with a black preacher and it's fucking awesome.
And he's just,
he's just preaching.
And I'm not religious.
He words it in a way
that's very palpable
for us to understand.
I am going to fucking play right now.
And if we have to bleep it out,
that's fucking fine.
Maybe it's a seven minute break
and we circle back after,
but we're going to listen to it right now. You got it? So fucking good. All right. We
can remain in silence while this happens and then we'll just pick up our audio after.
Are we awake? Oh my God, dude. Okay.
Was that a fair description?
I'm not a religious man, but... That was religious.
Fuck.
That was religious, but it was also said in a way that is quite on the psychology tip.
Yeah.
Right?
So there's a bunch of shit that comes up listening to that song.
And if you guys want to know what the fuck I'm talking about,
you should probably pause this and play that song if it's not something that we can put into the podcast
okay so um to kind of set the stage our bodies are hundreds of thousands of years old they have
been molded by evolution to perform in the world where there wasn't language for hundreds of thousands of years and we grew up inside of
a tribe and like our body is an instrument that our mind doesn't understand that we have to learn
how to use and the body will give us feelings as data when you listen to that song there's a bunch of shit going on. One is there's a way of speaking as a chief
that preachers have been honing for hundreds of years.
Thousands.
Thousands of years.
It's a way of speaking that a normal person doesn't talk,
but a preacher who gets it down
and who speaks in the cadence of the rhythm of the thinking
and the people who gives it,
like it seizes the body in a way that normal speech doesn't do it.
Also, when there's a bunch of humans making the same sound at the same time,
like think about when that would happen in our tribal history, war and ritual,
like where all the people in the tribe are going are making the same like and it it our body the instrument of that has been honed by evolution we get goosebumps
the moment we hear it because it's like something significant is about to happen and music has been
leveraging that feeling for you know hundreds of thousands of years probably. And then there's the piano in
there, the cathedral. If you think about what the fuck a cathedral was 500 years ago, that was the
epitome of ritualistic architectural magic. If you're a farmer and your entire life has lived
on the farm, but every Sunday you
go to the fucking cathedral and they play the organ that is piped through the entire fucking
structure and you hear a sound that you would never hear outside of the cathedral. Like it's
a technology that was created to make you feel the feeling of God. And like that song, it uses that, like there's something archaic about it,
archetypal about it.
Drums.
What's the first sound every single human
that's ever lived has ever heard?
Heartbeat.
The heartbeat.
And I think that the drum is something
that grew out of like,
it is the first sound humans ever hear.
And there's something trance-like about a drum beat
that is to the cadence of the heart.
And every emotional state is linked
to a different type of heartbeat.
You can make someone feel something through a drum
beating at that heartbeat.
And that song used that too.
And then there's goosebumps.
Like, goosebumps is your body telling you
what is happening right now is meaningful.
And like, when you hear a chorus
or when you hear someone speaking,
like that dude speaks, goosebumps.
It's like, this is meaningful.
I need to bring all of my attention to this thing.
And this is a crazy idea, but the physiological response of what a goose bump is doing is it's trying to make the body larger.
And we are both, humans are both prey and predatorial animals.
We, in our evolutionary history, have both been prey and predator.
That goose bump thing is a prey response. It's something that a prey animal does to try to get
big, to try to scare off a predator. Make all those feathers fluff up.
Yeah. And we do that in the face of awe. If we encounter something that's awe,
if you take five grams of mushrooms, your prey circuitry starts to go off.
Like you're in the presence of something that can destroy you.
But it's also what makes shit feel meaningful.
And that's like, so goosebumps are weird.
Like it's telling you both be terrified and this is meaningful.
Pay the fuck attention.
And then the last thing I wrote is Hermes is, you know, the Greek messenger
God. And I think... I just know him as the clone, so you'll have to break him down a little further.
As the clone? Cologne. Oh, okay. So that was a college cologne I had, Hermes. I only knew about
Acts. But anyways, Hermes was the Greek messenger God, and he was basically the only God that could
move between Olympus and the underworld and would be able to come back. he was basically the only God that could move between Olympus
and the underworld
and would be able to come back.
He was also the one
that came and talked to humans.
And I think Hermes
is the anthropomorphization
of your intuition.
And I think like your intuition
is the way the meat suit
is trying to talk to the mind.
And the beautiful message
of that song is your mind is not done.
It's not complete. Wherever your mind is, it's not what it could be. And it has to die over and
over and over. And that's why psychedelics are so powerful. It's like, if you have a rigid mind,
five grams of penis envy will get rid of the rigidity for sure. And in order for you to learn and become
who you could be, you have to allow your mind to be broken down by your intuition. Like your
intuition is going to whisper to you, go do that thing. And your mind is going to be like, no,
no, no, I don't want to, that's not the right. But a part of you knows that like doing X is exactly
the thing that you need to do, but it'll kind of break down your mind.
So Hermes is kind of an idea because I was getting goosebumps while I was hearing that song.
It made me think of the idea of Hermes and intuition and following your intuition, but great fucking song, dude.
Thank you for sharing that.
Fuck yeah.
Well, I didn't think it's appropriate, right?
Because this podcast is launching in January.
It's a new year's song.
That's what it's about.
It's about fucking don't
take your old mind into this
new year. Don't refuse
to live another year
with the old ways, with the old mind,
with the negativity, with all the fucking things
that go into that, with judgment, with blame,
with hatred.
Fucking renew the
mind. Refresh. Be
born anew in the fucking new year. And that doesn't mean,
no, I'm not going to eat chocolate this year. It just fucking means like,
get your mind right and everything else will fall in place.
Yeah. There's a quote that I read by Jung recently, and it's,
the hero is the sacrificer and the thing that's sacrificed. And if you look at all of mythology,
like the core hero story is the human
or the God that dies and is reborn.
And it's the idea that like,
what you are is not your personality.
It's the thing that can watch your personality die
and then watch it be reborn.
And I think that the New Year's
is a symbolic representation of that idea
that in order for you to become who you could be,
you need to die.
But the thing is that the thing in you that dies isn't you.
The thing in you that watches the death and the rebirth
of who you could be over and over and over and over again,
that's you.
I love howan desmond just
strolls into the fucking podcast with the squeakiest motherfucking shoes on earth in the
background and a baller ass mustache to to accommodate for for the distracting noises i
hear ask him what he calls his mustache what do you call your mustache ian my womb brush all right that's good that's good
comedy break right there fuck um you're gonna sit and join us ian why don't you keep playing
with plastic in the background while we circle back to our uh story here
amateurs i thought it was the cleaning lady trying to come in here and water the plants
consuela the plant water uh you got a wave there you go all right buddy
well where were we before we were so rudely interrupted by ian desmond's allege at the
ledge on instagram i think like the fourth post that you'll see on his Instagram is Kyle abusing him at work and don't let the HR lady see it.
But what we were talking about is basically New Year's resolution.
It's so diluted in 2018, what will be 2019.
But it harkens back to probably the most important psychological fact is that you are not who you could be. In
order for you to become who you could be, you have to let parts of you die. But you are more than the
thing that dies. You are the thing that watches your personality die and regrow, die and regrow.
And the worst type of mindset that you could have is, I don't want to change.
That's old, right? I think I've talked with you about this before. I know I might have brought
it up on the Thousand Pounds of Men podcast on Aubrey's, but the idea of older versus elder.
You heard this? No, I like this. Okay. So in a tribe, elders were considered the grand maestros, the smartest, the most wise people among the group who had a wealth of life experience, but still never lost that zest for life and for living.
Yeah.
Right?
Like the fucking grandma in Moana.
Yeah.
She's a fucking elder.
For sure.
She is a legit elder. And there's a passion there, but there's
also that idea that young people have with the elder of respect. And I can learn from this person
and it's carried there. In the West, outside of tribes, we have olders. Olders are people who are
extremely bitter that they lived the majority of their
lives doing something they didn't want to do based on an idea that was sold to them.
And in that realization, fearing change, fearing the unknown, wanting to keep everything stiff
and stagnant, much like in Grumpy Old Men. And it's not a knock on, you know,
there's so many of us who have great grandmothers, grandfathers,
and we could say that person is an elder that I look up to.
That's my tribal elder.
I for sure don't.
But for every one of those people,
there's at least one more that falls into that older category
of a little bit bitter, a little bit pissed,
a little bit unhappy, and resistant to change, right?
I think it's far easier if you're engaged with life
and you continue to love life to adapt and go with the flow.
Yeah.
And I keep seeing an image of what the body of someone
who is an elder looks like as opposed to the body of someone who is an elder looks like as opposed to the body of someone who is an
older. And like, I just see like a deep hue of like orange or purple in the elder and then of
the older, just like a grayness, like a drabness and an emptiness. And I think what it comes down
to really is truly where do you put the ego in the hierarchy of your psyche if the ego is the
top thing and you think that that's the king of the kingdom you become an older like over the
course of your life you will not change you will not grow you will not kneel to any power beyond
the ego and you fucking just get wrinkles and rigidity and bitterness. But like an elder,
and like the Moana grandmother is a great example.
That's someone whose ego is subservient
to the God function inside of her.
Like she listens to the island
and to the elements and to the spirits.
And it might not make logical sense,
but there's something about humbling the ego in the kingdom of your psyche that breathes life into you.
You know, like you are so much more than your ego.
And your ego is not bad, but it makes for a bad kingdom if it's in the wrong position.
Yeah. And that's exactly what the guides are talking about in the book of freedom is that
it's our egos and our higher self are inextricable from one another. They're braided together as we
enter into this body. When we choose to come here, which we do, and we arrive, we have chosen
that element of duality. And through that, that's the braiding of the ego with this higher
self otherwise like you talked about in the game of life it's not a fucking game if we realize all
the things we're capable of and where we come from it's like oh okay this is fucking this is a walk
in the park yeah right so the element of forgetting and remembering is such an important one to make the game fun.
Yeah.
To make it challenging.
So a couple of things come up.
One is that the ego is the bridge that is required for the higher self to be made manifest in the physical world.
Like if there was no ego, the soul or whatever you want to call it would not be able to act in the physical world.
It wouldn't be able to become and made manifest. So the ego is like a bridge, but it needs to be,
it needs to understand its role and its role is not the king. And the other part of it is that
we're all playing games. This whole life is just games interwoven with games and games inside of games.
And there's a way to play a game where if you play it, you make the game better for everyone else who plays it after you.
And there's a way to play the game where you ruin the game for everyone else.
And it seems to be that you need to not know how fucking powerful you are for the
game to continue.
If you started the beginning
of some epic RPG and you
were maxed out on everything,
the game would fucking suck.
And so there is
this... The resistance
is the fun. It might
not feel like the fun in the moment, but in
hindsight, all of your favorite memories, you did something hard and then feel like the fun in the moment but in hindsight like all of your favorite
memories you did something hard and then you got the reward on the other side of it like most people
don't enjoy climbing everest during the climb of everest some crazy people fucking love it but most
people love the story of having climbed everest and then of being able to share that with people. And so I think resistance is the way, you know.
Fuck yeah.
Obstacle is the way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Many of those parallels.
What are some of the ways since getting to Onnit that you've started to introduce more
obstacles?
Like, you know, I think I mentioned this before.
I forget who we were talking to.
We were talking about stress, chronic stress versus acute stress.
Yeah.
And obviously chronic stress being a major problem in the West.
But acute stress being one of the benefits, should we know how to use it properly?
What are some of the ways that you've added in some acute stressors?
Yeah.
So a really clear one is I started working out again for the first time since I was like 19.
I'm in the best shape of my life. And so on it is a huge reason for that. Because I'm an introvert. I want to be in a situation where I feel like I have control over what's happening.
And when we do anything outside of the office, the level of energy that comes out of everyone, it scares me.
And so saying yes to those invites is one way that I've also accepted the call to the fucking caves and the dragons.
I've known I've wanted to read the collective works of jung for years and i've just been procrastinating and i forgot i i started after peru like i was just i i just knew like it's
time and so no matter what happens the night before no matter how late it is i wake up at six
i get here by seven and i read for two hours. That's my warrior ethos
until I'm done with this fucking book. And so sometimes I get four hours of sleep. I try to
get eight because I really like and love sleep and know the importance of sleep. But that is an
unflinching rule that I now have for myself until I'm done. And then the big thing has been dating. Like, um, I'm really good at
being monogamous. I'm really good having a long-term single bond with someone. But since
being around you guys, I like for me, for the point in my life that I'm at, that's choosing
monogamy now is me being a coward. It's me saying no to a call to adventure. I don't know if I'm
going to be non-monogamous forever.
And I honestly don't think I will be.
But I know that this is a piece that I need to go through
to challenge all of the shitty love stories
that I was taught by culture and by my parents.
And it's not their fault.
They were taught worse love stories
that they've tried to extricate themselves from.
But trying to date people
and fucking be honest about what is
happening is probably the hardest thing that i've chose that's an acute stress when you go
on a date where you know that that conversation is going to come up and a lot of triggers are
going to flare up and you have to sit there as khal unfolds in front of you. Like that's the acute stressor
that I'm saying yes sir to every day. Yeah. Yeah. It never, you know, as Aubrey says,
with open relationship, it's the ceremony that doesn't end. Right. Because shit can come up for
people at any hour of the night on any day. Yeah. And
there's no real way to prepare for that. There's no real way to understand that. Um, so it, and
then again, there are so many lessons that tie into this from any other event that would be
transformative, whether it's psychedelics or a new job or life change, the ability to stay calm in the storm, the ability to be a rock in a stormy sea or to be a weeping willow, you know, to bend but not break.
Yeah.
Right?
You don't want to be the mighty oak in a hurricane.
You want to be the willow.
Wow.
Yeah.
So you bend but don't break.
There's a fucking defensive coordinator used to say that shit at ASU.
Bend but don't break there's a fucking defensive coordinator used to say that shit at asu bend but
don't break yeah right that's critical when you're facing challenges at that pace because um
ayahuasca will end yeah you drink the tea yeah and six hours later you're out of the woods
you know you can that's a great point yeah But there's other things they don't, right?
Yeah.
And like, I've been thinking about this, about like, why?
Because the women in my life are really asking me like, why are you doing this?
And I've been thinking about it a lot.
And I think it really comes down to, there's a quote from Jung and it's, the ghosts of
the parent haunt the child. And I think all of us inherent ghosts of how to love
and what we need to do to be worthy of love
and what others need to do to be worthy of love.
That I want to try to expose my ego to my demons, my ghosts,
as much as I can before I have children
so that when I have children,
I give them the least amount of demonic ghosts about what love is, about how you should be to
get love and how others should be to get love from you. And I think the more people you love in truth,
the more likely you are to have your triggers exposed. And so the more people you
love, the more triggers get exposed. And I want to at least know all the ghosts in my house before
I bring kids into them. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, brother. Well, you're certainly
employing all the practices. So there's no shortage of revealing right for sure those are these things are are
the great revealers you know like whatever's going on behind the curtain that shit gets exposed yeah
and you can it's very the wizard of oz cannot live here yeah we fucking try so hard to tell
everyone everything's okay all the fucking time we We do it to ourselves more than anyone else.
I'm fine.
It's okay.
I'm fine.
It's okay.
And it's not, right?
And just like through meditation and things like that,
and even like the psychosomatic expression of body in yoga or Kundalini
or just fucking screaming or any of these practices that move that energy out
like it's so necessary for us to live proper it's so necessary for us to recalibrate our mind
yeah and express through the body and release the fucking tension hold up for sure of anger or pain
or fear or sadness and frustration and fucking you you know, like we have.
The body remembers, yeah.
We have, the body remembers.
We have to move that through the body.
It's not enough to move it through the mind and say, okay, I surrender.
I release that pain.
Like it's still fucking stuck there.
You got to express it.
You got to stretch and open.
That was one of the big takeaways for me in this men's retreat in Sedona with Aubrey and my buddy Cal and Ted Decker, who fucking authored the 49th Mystic and Rise of the Mystics and a few other ones, Tate Fletcher, Aaron Alexander.
One of the biggest takeaways for me was in order to soften my heart and be more compassionate, I must soften everywhere.
I must soften my mind in my approach and rigidity. I must soften my body.
And that doesn't mean I'm going to turn into a fat tubby bitch. It just means like I need to be
more flexible and more limber because when I'm stiff and tight in the body- Your armor is too
good right now. There's an expression of that in the mind. If I feel stiff and stagnant in the body,
my mind replicates that. Absolutely. Right. And that's, that's a fucking
big one for me to get. And what's so interesting is, uh, I've realized the opposite for me since
Peru is that, um, I starved my animal body of power because I didn't want to look at my animal
nature and the power that came from it. So I had a really weak, flimsy body. And since Peru,
I've recognized, no, that's being weak. And what I need to do is I need to let the beast come
forward and deal with the nature of the beast. And so I've actually started working out,
trying to get my body to a place where the animal nature is louder so i can actually contend with it because
i let the bear starve in the basement and that's not fair so like now i'm trying to feed that
motherfucker and say okay it's time to come out and i will wrestle with you yeah you know hell
yeah that's balance right balance looks different for everyone balance might be a i've been focused
so much on my
body it's time to release some of that open up stretch more be more flexible in all ways right
and for others who have been so focused on the cognitive side of things the mental emotional
spiritual maybe it is time for sure to push right and that's those are the things we reflect upon
as the year changes yeah right that's what important. Not when the clock strikes 12,
but for the whole fucking first quarter,
for all of January,
for all of February,
for all of March.
Yeah.
Think of which seeds we plant
in the springtime.
Be mindful of that.
Understand what will I push to grow
throughout the year
and know whatever hiccups I have
are just that.
It's not off the wagon.
It's not now I'm a fat loser again
and I'm going to eat this way for the rest of the year.
Circle back.
Get back on it.
Do it.
Yeah, our development is not a straight upshot
and straight downshot.
We are circumnavigating a mountain and we're rising and we will revisit all of these
parts of our development at higher and higher elevations. And so like your diet is something
that you'll revisit every year and you can hone and tinker. It's not something that you just get
perfect or you fail. It's you're constantly rising to a new elevation and
you can look at it in a new way and you can bring it up with you. And every day you make a choice.
Yeah. Right? Every day you make a choice. Multiple choices. What am I going to eat today for
breakfast? What am I going to eat today for lunch? What am I going to eat today for dinner? I have a
choice to make each time in that. I have a choice to make on how I react and respond when I'm in a tough spot.
If I'm in an argument with my wife or if something's going on at work that I feel isn't right.
Whatever the case is, whatever I'm resisting, I have a choice to make in how I respond to that.
Yeah.
And that's all presence.
Those choices are always made in the now.
Yeah.
And they are presence.
You know, the choices are presence in the presence.
Yeah.
I stole that line from Kanye West.
He said that my presence is a presence.
Anyways, in January, who knows where Kanye West will be,
but I'm willing to make that choice.
Maybe he'll be a part of Trump's cabinet.
We might see.
And a thing that, uh,
I wanted to touch on earlier is that the most practical technique that I have found to help me
hear Hermes in a day to day to help me check my momentum of the day, you know, so like if
something starts to go off the wheels, I can catch it quickly, is journaling.
And I think it goes back to the idea that you were talking about how most of us,
we lie to ourselves about what is wrong. And it's such a weird game that we're playing because
in our mind, we know that we're lying to ourselves. Some part of us knows that we're refusing to admit the truth to ourselves.
Like just take a moment to think about how fucking weird the human is. That it's like if your best
buddy knows that you're lying about a story and you still tell the lie in front of him, like the audacity and it's insanity really. But so like what I think
journaling can do for people who genuinely try to do it is it's the first place that they can start
to admit the shit that they lie about in their own head every day about how they feel about their
loved ones, how they feel about their coworkers, how they feel about their loved ones, how they feel about their co-workers,
how they feel about their dreams or where their life is headed or their children or their parents.
Because I really think, and this is straight out of Jordan Peterson's work, is that
if you speak the truth and if you act in truth, like if you perform the behaviors in truth, whatever happens is the best possible thing that can happen because it's in truth.
And the opposite is true too.
Things done in lies.
Thinking done in lies.
It produces the opposite of what is best.
Always.
Period. of what is best, always, period. And I think I offer journaling to people
because most people are so,
the very beginning of the journey
is being truthful to yourself.
And most people, especially like,
we're in such a cocoon here
that like when I go on dates
or I meet friends of friends
and I go to parties
and I see people outside of this,
like people are walking self-denying liars.
And it's so viscerally obvious.
And it's like,
it's part I want to cry
and part like I want to hug.
Like whatever shame you think the dad in your mind or the mom in your
mind has on you being honest. Like, I just want to hug that shit out of them. But then there's
also this like, well, I just met you. Am I allowed to talk about your mom and make you cry and try
to help you see that that's not okay. And that you can just be honest with yourself and the person
that you're arguing about or complaining about you can go talk to right now. And if you have a
genuine conversation with them, it'll change your whole relationship and everything at work will start
to get better or do i just laugh at your lie yeah you know that's tough well let me let me ask you
this something i've wanted to get into journaling and actually have a good reason to now um uh with life's challenges where i'm at with them yeah um i've done like
the gratitude journal and shit like that and i liked it because it made me more mindful of what
i what i appreciate in life and what i have real gratitude for but that always those those are
something that i'll have and i'll use for a quarter and then they're gone it feels hollow
yeah it feels hollow to me.
What are some tips for people to start journaling?
And I'm really asking this for myself.
For sure.
Okay.
Create your own ritual, whatever it is, but get weird.
Like get as weird as your fucking weird woo-woo self wants to get.
Like some incense and shit?
As deep as you want to fucking go.
So here's how I think about it.
Who I could be, if who I could be, my potential is a God that exists at the edge of time that's
watching me. He's witnessing me right now. He knows all my thoughts. He knows all my wishes,
all my desires. If I'm being truthful, he knows. He wants me to become him. And he will try
to help me. And the way he tries to help me is through my intuition. But the quality of my
intuition depends on my ability to be truthful. So when I write, I imagine I'm talking to my
potential. And it's weird. I'll sometimes say goddess i'll sometimes you know say prometheus is the name i
give my my potential but in my mind i feel like the god of who i could be is watching me
so it's like show the fuck up eric say the fucking truth eric yeah you know and whatever ritual you
need to do to get into that headspace of your God, not abstract God.
The Kyle you could become, he's watching.
And he's a fucking elder.
He's everything you could be if you did everything you knew you should and you stopped doing everything you knew you shouldn't.
And he's sitting at the edge of time.
He completely loves you and he wants you to become him.
And I think he'll help me through journaling.
That's how weird I get with him.
I like that.
I like that thought process.
Almost allowing that as a muse to—
100%.
Yeah.
That's fucking huge.
Well, that doesn't weird me out.
I'm sure it might weird some other people out.
I can't speak for everyone.
Yeah, and the thing that I would offer is-
Not in the least bit. That sounds amazing.
The thing that I would offer is that we don't know what's true. So it comes down to what ideas
make you more effective in the world. I have found no idea more powerful than that as manifested
through journaling. And it sounds egotistical, but the life I have now is testament
to that idea working, you know? So if you're skeptical, be a true skeptic, be a true scientist,
and try it. Run the experiment and look at the data. If you just ignore it outright,
you're a dogmatist. You're in a dogma, and you're just not playing the game of life as well as you could.
Yeah, brother.
Well, I think this is a good place to push pause.
I need a pinch of loaf of bread.
All that.
What do we got here?
Let me give him a shout out.
Redwood Hill Farm plain cultured goat milk kefir is how I've been reestablishing my microbiome in lieu of 17 days of carnivore diet,
which I believe everything's up on it right now. So you want to dive into that, go for it.
Anywho, I'm going to let all this bacteria come out of my poop chute and
we'll circle back to round two on yours, brother. Yes, sir.
Thank you guys for listening to the show today
with my man, Eric Godsey.
Be sure to hit us up on social media.
Let us know what you think.
And as always, 10% off foods and supplements
at onnit.com slash podcast.