Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Summer Edition - Dude, Where's My Spiritual Awakening?

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

Are you searching for a spiritual awakening? Then join us for our 100th episode of Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown! Mayim and Jonathan reflect on spiritual awakenings explored in the Michael Singer and Byron Katie episodes. They discuss practical parenting applications for Byron Katie’s techniques, including ways to avoid putting your expectations on your kids, the importance of allowing time and space for kids’ to adjust to new situations, and the benefits of prioritizing an emotional connection between parent and child. They explain the limits of trying to intellectualize oneself out of suffering, the differences between reacting and responding, and how spiritual fitness can allow us to overcome "hormonal hijacking." Mayim and Jonathan open up about their own daily spiritual awakenings, why pausing is undervalued, and the dangers of living for the next adrenaline rush caused by conflict. BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Singer said that you were a spiritual teacher. Do I know that to be true? I mean, we have the tape to prove that. So we know that's true. But we don't know that he meant it. Did that hurt my feelings? Yes. Why?

I've never heard you sound so curious. Why did that hurt your feelings? Okay, we're going to talk about this now. It hurt my feelings because I felt left out. It's my and Bialics breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or. to you.

And now she's going to break. Hi, I'm I'm Biolic and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. And who boy or who girl do we have a breakdown for you? First, I'd like to introduce you to my favorite breaker downer, Jonathan Cohen. Hello, I am. Hello, Jonathan. I like your outfit.

Thank you. I'm in our new merch. Yeah, you are. You're in our new merch too. We're both wearing new merch. What this episode is, it's fantastic. It is a fantastic schmorgas board. It is a cornucopia?

It's a buffet platter. It's a tasting menu. It's a tasting menu of all things that we really honestly love the most to talk about. In this episode, we cover a lot of territory, and it's a little different than our typical episodes. It's a little bit of a thought stream of consciousness about spiritual awakenings, about aspects of ourselves that we bring to, for example, our present world. sometimes as parents, sometimes as humans. It's like a best of our deepest thoughts is what it feels like.

We do a real deep dive into some of the deeper issues that honestly came up for me in some of our heaviest kind of spiritual healer episodes that we did. In any event, we really hope that you enjoy this smattering of goodness. You may have a spiritual awakening just listening to this. And yeah, tell us what you think. And this is a format that we're sort of toying with to sort of take a concept that has already been brought up in one of our episodes. But it needs more unpacking. It needs more

breaking down. It needs more breaking down. And also it allows us to take some of the information that we all share with you that we hear for the first time as we're experiencing it and see how we've integrated it into our lives. And I think that's very true of all the things we talk about in this episode. I'm grateful for the opportunity to process further what we experience when we do the podcast. And we are very happy to bring you along with us. A little housekeeping. If you haven't already subscribed to the show, do so on your podcast platform, follow Mime's YouTube channel, click the little bell notification.

Also, the Instagram account at Bialik Breakdown on Instagram. Yes. Follow us. We have exclusive content only available there, and we're always checking our messages and comments. And now, pull up a plate, get in line at the buffet, take what you like and leave the rest. Break it down. Jonathan, what are the four questions, Byron Katie says you ask of any thought or problem? Do not look it up.

What are the four questions? I don't like a test. The first one I know is, is it true? Okay. So you have a... The second one is, how do you know it's true? No. Okay, the first question is, is it true?

The second one is, can you absolutely know that it's true? I was pretty close. But totally had a different meaning. But hold on. There's, Mike Myers has a new comedy out. He has a new Netflix show and it's making fun of Canada. And the Canadian... So there's like a little commercial in this spoof about a Canadian news show.

A boot. And the spoof is for a game show. and it's called something like close enough where all you to get it right you just have to be close enough that's the Canadian version so technically my answer was right and that's also the title of my memoir

close enough what's the third question Byron Katie has you asked so is it true? Can you absolutely know it's true something to the effect of what would life be like if it wasn't true? Oh that's four how do you behave when you have that thought and then the fourth badly badly is usually

usually and then the fourth what would life be like without that thought i introduced my kids to the work by byron katie after we had her on and we took a walk i took a walk with my kids children who are 13 and 16 so i took my children for a walk and i told them that we had just spoken to a woman who had had a spiritual awakening and my older son was very skeptical like oh yeah whatever that means because he's very whatever he's very into like what's god what's spirituality like blah blah blah And I said that this woman had a very significant experience. And Miles, was she on drugs? No, Miles.

That's what you asked. She was at a halfway house, as she describes it, being treated for a variety of addiction, she said. And I said that something happened to her and she had this awareness. And I told them that when she got home, she said that she got to meet the person that she was. She got to meet the mother that she was before she went into this state, this halfway house, because her children told her. And my kids said, well, what do you mean? I said she allowed her children to say all of the things that she had done that hurt them.

And Fred was like, well, that sounds intense. I said, yeah, can you imagine what that would be like? I said she said she was unrecognizable to them. And I said that one of the things she talked about was she was always nagging. them about picking their socks up, and she all of a sudden stopped. And I said to them, what do you think it would be like if I stopped bothering you about all the things I think you should do in the house? And they thought this was very intriguing.

Did they think it was a trap? They didn't think it was a trap. But what I said to them is, you know, it's very important to me that the house look a certain way. But I said that Byron Katie pointed out, that may only be important to me. And that I am also allowed to say, I don't want to have conflict with my children. about whatever. And this doesn't mean that they don't have responsibility

because of course they were like, this sounds amazing. It doesn't mean they don't have responsibility. It doesn't mean they're not held accountable. But what I realized was that the thoughts that I had about why they weren't doing the chore or whatever had nothing to do with their decision. So what I hear is,

he doesn't want to be part of this family. He wishes he had a different mother. Like, that's not true. There's an enormous amount of story associated with them not listening to you. And negativity and judgment. So I also And that fuels emotional reaction And like

Totally well because all of my expectation is then put on to them Can you slow down for a second And like, Build us a formula Like build the Build the blocks of a formula That lead to you upset and angry at your children Starting with them walking in the door

Yeah their crap goes all over the floor They just like throw it some more than others. I mean, one of them will literally take his shoes off. I literally have a thing that is the shoe thing. Everybody's shoes are there. They're just in the middle. So what my thought is is he doesn't respect the rules of this house. And is that true?

No. So slow it down. He doesn't want to put his shoes in the shoe thing. He comes in. The shoes go somewhere. This is where I want the building blocks to be created. Because so much of this happens. automatically, right?

I'm instantly tense. Instantly tense. I'm instantly tense. I'm already scanning for what are they going to do wrong when they walk in the door. And I love these children. I really do. I enjoy spending time with them. Like, I like them as people.

And the reason I'm slowing it down and wanting to build, because I believe there's a formula. And I believe everyone is in some form of this. And it's happening so quickly that we don't recognize it. Right. So, and really what I'm trying to articulate is the externalization of the internal process, meaning they come in... Are you proud of yourself for using that expression? You look a little proud.

I mean, I'm proud that it didn't get stuck in my mouth when I was trying to come out. They come in the house. Any type of behavior happens. This is painful, but... No, and also, like, their dad's there. So, like, I'm... And I have a very good relationship with him,

but already I'm like, what are they going to do? That's different. And he's going to say, like, she doesn't have the house. Like, all those stories. So forget about anything they do. They enter the house. You begin to analyze and have a running narrative in your head. Totally.

That running narrative could be a list of a thousand different individual thoughts, but collectively they form together and they're creating anxiety in you. Tension. Tension is a better word. Yeah, it's not, yeah. Heightened awareness, increased scanning. I like instantly feel irritable. So you have these running thoughts. They create irritation, which leads to more scanning.

and leads to you looking to control the external environment, finding ways to either justify or negate the tension, meaning that if you see them do something positive, then the tension goes down. Right. And if you see them doing something that validates that tension, then the next story perpetuates, and you're in this cycle of analyzing judgment,

sort of value judgment about behavior and then tension. Yeah, and then it's like everything beyond that is impacted by it. oh, they don't want to eat where I think. They don't like the snack that I made. The this, that, the other. They won't come downstairs. They need, like, Fred always needs adjustment time. He doesn't want to be asked to do anything, right?

When he gets in the house, like, all these things. And that tension also impacts the natural flow of the interaction between you, the behavior. So, for example, he needs to go do something. If things were really untents, you would be in your natural flow and he would come and go and then you would come together. Well, let's play this game. How do I act when that thought is working? irritable, tense, all the things you just said, short-tempered, like I want to eat chocolate. You know, literally, I want to be like...

Because you have an agitation happening. Because I'm just agitated. Yeah. And the fourth Byron Katie question, you know, what would it be like, what would it be like if I didn't have that thought? What I would do is dedicate the time of them entering my house, which is a transition for them, even though I've been divorced for 10 years. It's still a transition. And I would organically let it unfold and not place demands on. wear shoes go. If I want to pick the shoes up, just pick the shoes. That's what Byron

Katie said. She's like, if you can do the chore because it's important to you and you're not doing it at them, just like, pick the shoes up. And then they get to do whatever it is that they need to, which is clearly. To adjust and transit. But this is what people are going to say. How's he ever going to learn manners? How's he ever going to learn to pick his shoes up? Is he just going to find someone who will pick his shoes up when he gets married? So that is a story perpetuating behavior into the future. That's true. And what might be happening right now is simply that they have an emotional need that needs to happen, which is time and space to settle into the fact that they've just left their dads into their moms.

Without being criticized or bothered about things that are not time sensitive. They're not urgent. No one's hurt. We're not going to the hospital. So prioritizing the emotional connection and general safety, well-being, calmness of the home could change all of the dynamic. My M. B. Alex breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of.

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Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. Superpower. Not only did superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention my and Bialitz Breakdown to help support the show. So I started applying this essentially to every, like on this walk with my kids,

I brought up like everything. I was like, sometimes my mom bugs me. Like, let's talk about why, you know, and I had them go through the four questions, right? Give us an example. Well, I don't want to be mean to my mom. She listens to this. Okay, whatever. My mom has her own time frame for like how she wants the evening to go and I want to take a walk instead of have dinner when she wants.

Right? So that's not what you say is it true. What it would be is that like she's always in charge of everything. That's the story I'm telling, right? She doesn't be in charge of everything. Is that true? No, she doesn't always have to be in charge of everything. Can I absolutely know that she doesn't have to be in charge of everything?

Yes. I absolutely know that she doesn't always have to be in charge of it. Right? That thought. How do I act when I think that? Bitchy, snarky, short, irritated, like, not the daughter that I would like to be. No matter how she's behaving, I don't want to behave that way. You know, like, that's what I'm a, that's what my children see.

How does our mom act, you know? And what would it be like if I didn't feel that? I could take a walk another day. She wants to serve dinner. It's really okay, you know. It's a lot of releasing of expectations of how we think things should be. Yeah. Well, apparently, I only live in.

expectations. Like reality? What's that? I mean, what is reality? I don't mean to get esoteric, but most people go into situations with an expectation of what they think the other person wants, what they think they want, how they think the situation will unfold. And what I mentioned previously was that we spoke to two people who had these spiritual awakenings. Yeah, in the course of like a week and a half and it was sort of just a really powerful time period for us as humans humans who are sitting with other people just listening to their stories and you have to ask like what are the circumstances by which these awakenings happened and how did it change why didn't I get one well I actually I want to go back to that because Michael Singer who was the second person said

you shouldn't look for an awakening you should have the person who's had the awakening Well, it's moments of small changes and shifts, which I think are actually away. That is most people have those types of moments of awakening. Everybody has their own journey. That was his journey. That's the journey that his life went on. As he pointed out, there was a million other things that he didn't do, that he could have been doing. But he had that particular epiphany.

And that was his, that was his derich. That was his path. And then, like, I have my own path. Like, my path was that, like, I thought it would be fun to be an actor when I was 11. I had no idea what that meant. And then, like, a year later, my life changed forever. Like, that—and I'm not saying that's a spiritual awakening because it's not. But it takes all these different kinds of humans on this planet, hurling through space to make all—

like, we can't all have spiritual awakenings. I mean, that's called the Messianic Age, if you want to get religious about it. But that's not where we're at in the course of humanity. We need teachers and we need students. We need leaders and we need followers. And we need people to do all the things that make a society run. And I have such respect for people like Michael Singer who created a communal experience because that feels really, really right to me as a human.

But we're all on our own, also individual paths. Absolutely. Where I was going when I asked what is reality. anyway was not to say that we potentially live in a simulation, which we might, but what I was saying is the commonality between the two people who had these spiritual awakenings that we got to hang out with was the removal of the expectation of what is real and what are our expectations and how are our expectations guiding you to the moments. Michael Singer talked about the surrender. I dug in there a little bit because I was like, do you surrender your will? You just go with

the flow, you don't have any opinions anymore, and he was like, absolutely not. You just remove your expectation of the outcome of a situation. Michael Singer liked you more than he liked me. I asked questions. Do you know that to be true? No. Michael Singer said that you were a spiritual teacher. Do I know that to be true? I mean, we have the tape to prove that, so. But we don't know that he meant it. Did that hurt my feelings? Yes. Why? I've never heard you sound so curious. Why did that hurt your feelings? Okay. It hurt, here we're going to talk about this now.

It hurt my feelings because I felt left out. I felt like we had this amazing spiritual teacher on, and he was. Like, what my therapist said is, like, the reason that I was weeping openly is not really even what he said. It's like just there's something about that person. Like, it was very, very, it was exceptional. Can I add one piece here? Of course, you're my spiritual teacher. He saw you.

in a way that was really unique. I mean, only you see me cry that much, you and Michael Singer. You should have said, I'm the one who makes her cry the most. What's happening here? There was, I don't know if people who are watching or were watching or have watched can see what was happening. But there was this, you know, for lack of a better term, his gaze just kind of like went in and around you. Through Zoom.

through Zoom. It made me believe in therapy by Zoom. Held a state of openness for you. And he like saw you and was reaching out this level of like awareness. He kept saying my, like he kept saying like, why am? Is it true? Is like, do you understand or? And he was pulling you in.

And for me, like I felt I had a ton of questions and I had a lot to say in that interview, which is different than a lot of the other interviews. I probably chimed in more in that one. Yeah. Which also could have thrown you off in. in terms of balance. I don't like when other people speak. But you also, like, we have a regular cadence to our interviews,

and so change for you sometimes is not easy. So you were dealing with a different dynamic in that regard. But also I felt left out. You did feel left out. Because everybody was spiritual, and you were talking on a level that's very hard for me. Like, I read Untethered Soul, and it touched me very deeply,

but like every page took a very long. time. I said, like, the only thing I can compare that book to is, like, when I studied the most esoteric ancient Hebrew text, right? And I have a very different experience with his writing. Right. So, and this was, well, and you read that book and it is now, it made perfect sense to me. It made perfect sense to you, and it's in your brain forever. And if I asked you, Jonathan, will you teach a class on untethered soul? You'd be like, yep, done. I start in five minutes. Whereas, like, I would have to go back. And that's just, we have different brains. I felt really inadequate.

I felt really intimidated. And that was like separate from like the information. Because like the information that the two of you were talking about was awesome. But it's kind of like I got an A in quantum physics. You know, in quantum physics. And at the time, like I was deeply connected to quantum physics. If you asked me now to explain the formulas that I so meticulously memorized to calculate the things that I calculated, I wouldn't know how.

And this is why I hate when people are like, you're still smart. You have a PhD. No. You know, some people have to piecemeal academic information. And I'm that, that's why I didn't go to med school

because I couldn't hold certain kinds of information to do well on certain kinds of tests. That's not how my brain works. And you just like read the book and you're like, now I'm an expert. And it was very heady. It was very like, you guys were talking about like all this stuff. And I was just like, mm-hmm.

I'm just sad. Can someone make me not sad? So I've never taken quantum physics, apart from the popularization. Just read the book, and I'm sure you will just ace it. Except for the popularization of the concepts that have sort of come into popular media, I have not read hardcore quantum physics. There's something about his writing to me that was just, it just, he spoke in a way that I understood. And you're kind of, your face is turning sad again.

But I'm only saying that is that we have different ways that we interpret information. And so that happened to be like just clear to me, but I've read other things that are not clear to me. And he kept going and talking about the power of the intellect and your mind especially and talked about the wonders that it can create and the value of having a mind and a brain that I 100% don't have the way that your brain works and the way you can digest information and the type of academics you've done. you know, you talk about how you've struggled through academia, like there's just no world in which I could even struggle my way through that. And what he kept coming back to was also saying that that level of intellectual prowess when applied to a certain type of experience, the human experience of suffering and trying to intellectualize our way out of suffering can be really challenging. It's like that's not what the thing is made for. What this episode should be called is

Jonathan thinks he's trying to make me feel better, but he really just made me worse. We were talking about what is reality and that's how we got to the similarities between Byron Katie and Michael Singer. Each one of them asks, what is reality? And are the thoughts we are thinking true in Byron Katie's version? And Michael Singer says, how do you know you're thinking those thoughts? Well, or don't attach too much to those thoughts because the fact that you know that you're thinking that means you're not them. Correct.

Look, I've remembered something. I'm going to forget it another day. And so it's interesting to me that you have an emotional reaction when I was articulating that stuff. I think you have like the I need to be the prize pupil. We can come back to that. I mean, my mother's not even here for the two of you to gang up on me. You're doing it all on your own.

She said I always had to stand next to the birthday girl at other people's birthday parties. That makes a lot of sense. I wanted to be in the picture. I wanted to blow out the candles. So you got sad, and then you had a feeling of... Not because I was jealous. Also, that's the thing.

Like, I was also very proud of you. I felt very happy for you. There's a difference between envy and jealousy. You're acting like, you know what they are. No, where I want to go is that you had a thought, which was you are not going to. good enough in some way. Exactly. And what Byron, Katie, and Michael Singer would say, Byron Katie would say, is that thought true? Are you really not good enough?

Even if I say yes, I don't absolutely know that that's true. And then Michael Singer would say, you are not the fact that you don't feel good enough. You are somewhere else as the observer of that thought or feeling. Most people don't spend enough time with the who are they, separate from a thought or experience to have that be embodied or grounded enough. But what you just said, like, already made it harder for me to understand, whereas, like, what I want to hear, I want to go more practical with that information. Like, there's a part of me that believes I'm not good enough. And my job is to essentially distance myself from that thought so that I can, you know, and I don't even, you know, like he was saying, I don't even need to go to therapy and find out why.

It doesn't really matter. He actually said that the... Don't go to therapy. He didn't say that. Look, we don't say don't go to therapy, but he did say the pursuit of reasons down the path for all the ways that you believe you're not good enough and where that thought came from and where is that pattern is the use of the intellect to strengthen your relationship to the fact that you're not good enough versus separating from the fact that you're not good enough. And the byproduct of separating from the fact that you're not good enough is that you build a larger relationship with the part of yourself that is the witness. And that part of yourself is really the core of who we are. And in most traditions, there's like a sense of home.

There's a sense of the seat of the soul. And the more we're able to spend time with that self, the more attack. Not attached, but the more embodied it is, the more we know how to return to that. So when we're spiraling out of control and a thought or a feeling, we know there's somewhere else to go. I actually do want to say that I got upset with you last night. We didn't have time to talk or connect, whatever, because you were doing stuff and whatever. And I started to go there in my head of like, why didn't he this? Why didn't he that?

Why can't he this? And then I literally said, like, I'm going to make a choice right now. I'm just not going to go there. You are not all those thoughts and they are not true. That's right. Even if they are true, what I knew is that in the moment the disappointment I felt for not being able to connect with you when I wanted to, that will pass. It's going to pass. Is it constitutionally true that I never speak to you?

No. And the story that like, I hate to say it, but that like that I was raised to like tell your girlfriends of, you know, that's not absolutely true. It's just not. And so I had so many other things to do that I enjoyed doing. I've been putting off, you know, packaging the pictures of the boys that we take every year, you know, at JC Penny. I finally, like, I finally put them in envelopes and I took all my stickers out and I watched a little basketball and I had a snack. And, like, I had a very full evening, you know? Like, I didn't need to be upset.

And I woke up this morning and, like, lo and behold, it's not that I forgot. God. It's not like we had a, you know, a date and you left me stranded in Paris. Like, you were busy with your kid. You know what I mean? And like that. And I was like, oh, I just do that one day at a time. I just repeat that over and over that what I did then. I'm so tired. I can't have a job and keep doing that. It's so much work. It's work being exhausted. And what Michael Singer was saying is that we're doing it to ourselves. And he also said, and this ties back to your like, why can't you have an awakening? That was a moment of awakening. You chose, instead of being in a state of conflict.

And I didn't talk myself out of it. Around an emotional experience, you were like, I don't need to do that. It's just feelings. And feelings can exist. You don't need to suppress them, but you don't need to be so attached to them that they override your system. I was not, and I'm really glad we reviewed that. That was our sum up of our own spiritual awakenings. And everyone can have little moments.

And everyone doesn't always have to have the last word. because I will. We're moving into part two of a little special summer fun that we're having here at Miami-Alex Breakdown. And we've kind of been having a different sort of analysis, you and I. We've been kind of analyzing Byron Katie and Michael Singer, two guests we had within a week that were, I think, two of the most profound people. I'm not saying it was the two of the most profound episodes we've done. I do not get to be the judge of that. But I know that those two people, I think caused the most significant kind of like instant shockwaves to both of us sort of with where we're at in life and in our journey and in this podcast's journey.

And what you wanted to kind of talk about as a sort of PS to that was a little bit about like kind of our own personal spiritual transformation that in theory might make us more available to receive the kind of information that Byron Katie and that that Michael Singer kind of pursue. Is that a fair assessment? Yes, it is. I think that's a good assessment. You said something that I'm trying to recall it.

I don't have the exact words, but like the second part of it was make us more accessible to this information. But what was the first part? Well, I was talking about kind of a spiritual awakening. Well, more of like a personal spiritual experience. Like we've been talking about like Byron Katie and Michael Singer, both of whom, you know, had these like really, really specific, profound, like, ha, moments.

Did you get what that moment was? Do that again. And, you know, I kind of feel like, I want that. Where's mine? And you... Can I get that one more time just like 30 seconds so I can make it a gift? No, no, it does not need to be a gift. But you talk a lot about, well, you don't, let's start here. You don't seem to have the anxiety that I have about like, where's my spiritual awakening moment? like I'm ready and you kind of have a much different perspective that like those things happen like they're happening all the time in different ways for different people. Is that fair to say? Yeah. In part one, I'm pretty sure I said you are having moments of spiritual awakening all the time and that we should not look necessarily to the moment of being on the floor and seeing the light through the window

the way Byron Katie did, but that we're all in some form of awakening and those, it's more often in small moments of shifts and consciousness and perspective, the moment where we don't react the way that we had reacted before, the moment where we have more perspective, more calm, a little bit more of a way of managing is a shift in our awareness and that can be seen as an awakening. That isn't to say that people can't have dramatic transformations, but often those dramatic transformations come from a very unpleasant episode. So it's actually, you know, could be seen as better. It felt like when you were talking about it, you, you were sort of had a qualitative judgment on, you know, a process, meaning that like a huge crack open and,

you know, breakthrough is better than smaller increments. But, you know, I think each one of them comes with advantages and disadvantages. Sure. Well, tell me some of, well, you kind of wanted to talk also specifically about getting in relationship to the opening for spiritual awakening. Why don't we kind of go there? I couldn't help but reflect on an outcome of each of their perspectives, which, meaning, like when they began to change their thinking and not be tied to the understanding,

of the mind and the way that the mind analyzes, puts meaning to things, and has an expectation of outcome. The end result of that was a higher trust in some sort of process. I asked Michael about that and he was like, no, that's not, you know, he's like, it requires no faith. It requires nothing. It just requires a detachment from you as the thinker to you as the observer. And in so doing, he began to say yes to things. But when I take a step back, and look at his life, there was a trust in whatever the now was. Okay. In order to trust whatever the now is, there is a larger faith in something, I think.

I mean, I think that's when I think about the things that I've tried to apply, not only from Byron Katie and from Michael Singer, but even from like the 12-step program structure, you know, which relies on, we call it a higher power, but it really doesn't necessarily mean God. I promise it doesn't. for a lot of people it is, but what I think about is really, like what that translates to practically, I'm just going to break it down super simple. What that means is that you don't attach to outcomes in any direction. And, you know, for Michael Singer and I think for Byron Katie,

that that's very rooted in ancient Eastern tradition. So this is nothing like new. But the language that 12-step programs uses is like turn it over. Everything's going to be okay. Like, have faith in a higher power, which to a lot of people then all of a sudden sounds like very religious or very Christian or very institutionalized. But what you're talking about, that trust is no matter what happens. And go ahead and throw everything into that category.

So for Michael Singer, it was like potential financial and career. ruin and like possibly not being able to support yourself or your family, right? Throw that in there. All the bad things that you'd like to be mad at God about from whatever childhood religion you were indoctrinated into. And I was indoctrinated into one as well. Throw all that in there. You put sick children in there.

Like everything goes under there and you can be okay. You can be okay. And even if it doesn't feel okay. It doesn't mean you don't feel pain. It doesn't mean you don't feel grief. If it doesn't mean that you don't experience what will quote, what is note or what is labeled as negative, but if you remove that label and it is just what it is. Right, and I can tell you what it looks like. It looks like you don't spiral.

You don't go the places that you're. I mean, I've been all those places. So I can tell you exactly what I'm not supposed to do, right? You don't make large generalizations based on one anecdote. You do not take situations and make them about your deep failings as a human. You do not make any cat. This didn't happen because I didn't do X, Y, and Z. No, right.

So like, no catastrophic thinking. I mean, I'm taking it away from myself. right? If I go into that place of trust, and it doesn't have to be trust in God, it's trust that there's a pattern that I can't see. I can't see it. What Michael describes is that the control and the understanding that we're trying to apply to a situation is only based on our past experience. And our past experience is so tiny compared to the vastness of experience in the universe. All the experiences we haven't had are, you know, cannot even measure to the experiences that we've had because the experiences that we have had are so small.

Yep. Well, and I think also it doesn't mean that you don't have legwork to do. Something I have learned much later in life than I thought I should have, but I didn't get the lessons or I didn't see the lessons or hear them is that my might sound really intuitive to a lot of you and don't laugh. I did not realize how much I should not always try. trust my emotions. I'm going to say that again. I didn't realize how much I should not trust my emotions. Now, what that means is anytime that I'm feeling a strong emotion, really in any direction, and I feel like emotions go out in every direction. It's not just like the good and the bad. There can be emotions that are excited and neutral or confused. Any heavy or intense emotion of any direction

around me is likely to lead to reactivity instead of a response, right? And the goal for me is to respond and not react. So if someone says, let's get married, even that, I feel like if anyone ever asks me that question again, I'm going to say, I need to pray on that. I'm going to take a beat. Let me sleep on it. That's how much. If you want to propose to either of us, you can do it on the Instagram page. Just tag us. Stop. No, but. But that's the level of, and there are people, I believe, who can trust their emotions. Good for them. For me, Jonathan is literally the best person in the universe to witness what happens to me.

If I listen to my emotions in the moment, it's not good. Everybody ends up crying. Well, emotions are cyclical because here's the thing. We're taught trust your gut. But which gut are you supposed to trust? Which intuition? How do you know if your intuition is clear, meaning is, is, Is it filled with fear and I'm moving away from the things that I fear or towards the things that I want to move towards in my life?

And how do I distinguish the two? Some fear is meant to keep us safe. Some fear is meant to hold us back. How do I know what to break through? An athlete will say never let fear control you and try as hard as you can and always be attached to the outcome. Okay. The answer, if we go back to our original thesis, the answer is still turn it over, meaning that. That fear already starts a cycle.

And this is why when you meet great spiritual leaders, they have a very calm-centered energy. Like, that's a thing. That's a thing. It's true. I mean. Have they ever won a gold medal, though? But that's not why they're here. And they would be the first to say that, right?

Have they won a gold medal? Have they been nominated for four Emmys? No. So I'm trying to think of a spiritual leader or teacher, you know, who I've met who doesn't have like that comm centered energy. Like, I'd be hard pressed. No, that's how you get into spiritual leader school. Right. You have to have to.

But I think that what it means, and, you know, I'm not talking from the, I don't know if it was the Reformation or Calvinism. I kept Protestantism, you know, having a personal relationship with something that's not you thinking that you're God. because honestly that that that really is okay fine take away the god word if i think that i can control another person's behavior it's really not that different from me thinking i can control the weather i promise and people like oh but if you love someone they feel better yes but that's still them allowing whatever you're putting out or if you give the carrot or if you give the stick or if you try to motivate them somehow why would you give a stick to someone what metaphor is that the carrot is the sweet thing that you're going to bribe or, you know,

motivate them in exchange for good behavior, motivate them. And the stick is the bad consequences if they don't do the thing. And so those are the two options usually. Is that the book will write together, the carrot and the stick? Let's step back to go forward. That's the title of our book. We start our lives being cared for by our parents. Yes.

Or some adult figure. Our higher power, as it were. They keep you alive. And so exactly. So we look to them to have all of our needs met and we slowly realize that they're flawed human beings, but that takes many, many, many, many years. And so for a long time, we're programmed and conditioned to look to them to have our needs met. And we think that they're magical people that can do all the things and they know what is good and bad. And it takes us a long time to figure out that that might not be the case that they know everything.

But, you know, tying into some of the things that you've spoken about being a child actor and being someone who is working, you know, you've discussed looking to directors for that good job, you did it right. And so very quickly as we leave our, you know, parents as the primary people who are telling us what's right and meeting our needs, we then look to our teachers or we can look to friends for approval. And it's very rare, I think, that children are taught to develop at a very young age, a self-reliance or relationship with sort of a very deep inner knowing that allows them to have this, wait a second, there is either a deep intuition for myself, because children lack some of the, you know, context around the world through which to operate. and then how do we get into a place where we then begin to develop that with what we're calling a higher power? Okay, stop. Collaborate and listen. Deep cut. So the thing that I love about you is all the amazing things in your brain and how you put them together.

And the thing that's frustrating about you is that each of those things needs like its own hour. That's why you're here. So, but I do want to like, I want to take an even further step back from the step that you took back to move forward because you combined a couple things all in one. Two steps back, no steps forward. Go ahead. You combined a lot of things. So I'm literally approaching this now from, you know, kind of a, you know, a scientific level. So we are born as these like conscious but like not really, right.

We're like very, very tiny. And we're very dependent. And this is, you know, a feature of mammals. We are very, very dependent. And in particular, primates. A feature of primates is this extended dependence on caregivers. Extended. Like...

Sometimes your whole life. Well, you know, certain humans, yes. When you look at, I mean, you know, people think of the classic, like the horse, like the giraffe. Like, they're up and running the first day. Not so strong, but yes. Yes. And then you look at, I mean, I love to point to a marsupial because who doesn't love to point to a marsupial? You know, they are born like literally not even ready to be out of the womb, which is why they got to stay in that weird pouch with that nipple.

It's the whole thing. So let's look at primates, though. And by primates, I mean, not just us, but like look at chimpanzees. Like, watch a documentary. It's a good time. This is an extended dependence and an absolute really lack of kind of individuation, really, for a part of development. So, you know, the sort of age that we think of is, you know, for the first, like, three months, the baby doesn't really even know that it's like outside. Like, it's just everything is new. It's so many sensations. Like, what's happening. Why are their voices so loud? It's like, oh, because I used to be in the womb listening to their voices, right? So that's exactly what I said. Keep going. So you then have, you know, this relationship set up where the parent or the caregiver really is kind of the determiner of life and death, as it were, right? That's.

You have to be kept alive. And that's, you know, a lot of elaborate, like, the mammalian breastfeeding system and all of that and the bonding system around primate. Being told not to put the fork in the outlet. In the outlet. Right. That creates this notion of, like, they protect me. The whole world is seen essentially through our caregiver's eyes. Our entire formation.

And that's why the first year is so important. We're just seeing whatever they let us see, right? Whatever they let us experience. So that's that. You then took really kind of survival and that sort of life force that we then associate with these figures of superiority, you know, and that is the parent-child relationship is inherently hierarchical, right? And what happened is you, because we're humans, you turned that into like, that's where I get my approval, right? Because it's true. We establish this system where in order for the clan to stay together,

I don't just mean the Jewish clan in your family. In order for us to be a group of primates, we have to have that trust. Like, you can't have everybody going in a different direction when danger happens. You have to like go where you're told by the people who have the most experience, presumably. Enter human culture. And it becomes a lot more complicated. Enter mental health. enter war, famine, bloodshed. Yes, a lot of it in the name of God. Not going to lie, right? And you have a much more

complicated system then. But what happens and what you kind of described is that we set up this system then where we're constantly looking for something to be the thing that keeps us going. And we end up worshipping, I mean, you know, marks and angles like they named it. We became a culture. We've become a culture that worships money and capital and productivity. And what that means is it reorients our entire identity. And the same thing is true if we worship another human, right? And so what I'm saying is that we're primed to put someone in that role. We're not really primed to develop a different type of relationship. Well, look, this is the origins of much religious and spiritual thinking was supposed to give you that. And I do believe, forgive my ignorance. I believe, forgive my ignorance. I believe

it was Protestantism that, you know, brought God down, as it were, for people to have more of a, you know, kind of like a personal relationship. But that was also in the structure of Judeo-Christianity. But it is true that fostering a personal relationship with something bigger than you and something that you don't identify as someone you have to get approval from, someone you have to impress, someone who might hurt you if you cross them, right? I mean, think about what physical punishment feels like from the person that you've made a God, right? That's what a lot of our experience is as just as humans interacting. And so what a different way of approaching it looks like is trying to foster a culture in

your home or in your family or in yourself that allows you to feel okay no matter what, meaning not seeking approval from someone else, but having enough of a foundation of what feels healthy to you emotionally and spiritually so that you can build a life from that perspective, right? Or have an experience from that perspective. And I believe it was Michael Singer who said, no, it was it was Byron Katie who said, it's never too late. Like you can start today. You can start today with saying, why do I fly off the handle when I really should just take a minute, see how I feel about it in an hour? You know, when the adrenaline goes down. Or if I get into a fight with a partner, a sibling, a friend, a parent, I don't have to

fix it in the moment. I can say like, wow, this is feeling too big for me to handle. I'm going to take a break. Jonathan, how do you feel about all those things I just said? It's amazing. I love it. Like, my new game is, I just pitch you a few sentences and then you explain the evolution of the human being and why it is that we're all so messed up. And what we need to do to fix it, it's really, really why I'm here is just as a thought starter for you. Very eloquent, but you brought up this notion of triggers. And when we don't have a relationship that we may not know what the outcome is or that we need something to happen exactly the way that we expect it to happen, our triggers are, what's the word I'm looking for? They're less like. We're like a live wire. Yeah. And that's like

literally how I think many of us live our lives. We're just a live wire. And we're getting triggered by the adrenaline rush of a potential conflict, and instead of allowing that to dissipate, we just fuel it. Because we're like, well, if I just respond right away, I'm going to get this resolved, and then you're in this cycle of reactivity. But right, but also we are then trying to solve problems in the frame of mind where we are least likely to find solutions. While a certain amount of tension can be motivating, even in those situations, we are most likely to find, when we talk about larger. problems, larger things, big decisions, things like that, they need time and space. And if something, quote, I'm going to take away the word trigger from you or we need to do a whole episode about you in that word. And people love that word. But I think we should absolutely

talk about that. But we are not in a place really to receive. And we are mostly trying to control. But there's a scientific basis for this too, right? There's a narrowing of optionality that I don't understand it exactly from the neuroscience level, but like, tell us what's happened. Do you know what's happening exactly in the brain that's limiting our ability to have executive functioning? Yeah, you're, you're being hijacked. I mean, you're being hormonally hijacked. And again, there are times when that's really important. You know, I've, I've given birth twice, as many of you know. And that hormonal, no one knew that. That hormonal hijacking is how we perpetuate the species. Like, that's how you give birth. And so there are times when we need that hormonal rush, when you're in a, when you're in a real

threatening situation and for anyone who's been in, God forbid, a critical car accident or something of that nature, if you've been in a situation where there's terror or a terror attack, that is the hormonal hijacking that also keeps us alive, right? However, we have a very redundant system. The brain and the body and the universe is very redundant. There's like a couple things that your, that your chemistry is going to do. And the cognitive ability to override that is the muscle that we have to exercise by spiritual fitness and mental health. And if that muscle is, if that muscle is weak, we are going to be a lot more, and I don't mean weak in terms of your week. I mean, if you're trying to lift a 15 pound dumbbell, the muscle can either do it or it can't, and you can develop that

muscle and the kind of work that you and I are trying to do ourselves and that we are trying to encourage other people to do, which often is assisted by things like psychoanalysis or CBT or trauma work or somatic therapy, all of those things are strengthening the muscle so that you start to recognize sooner and more efficiently when your emotions are not what should be calling the shots. Sometimes it just requires a really good pause. Pausing is an important, important skill that is highly undervalued. And you know what else is undervalued? These conversations.

And I'm very grateful that we get to have them and share them with so many people because people want a quick fix. Guess what? It doesn't happen. It really doesn't happen. There's not a quick fix to this. I'm 46 and I'm still learning every day. And the closer I get to not trying to force solutions.

and to getting out of my own way, the closer I come to this awakening that might happen one day at a time. Some might say you're 46 and having little awakenings every day. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have with the assistance of the spiritual awakenings that we hope you will have. We'll see you next time. It's my ambiolyx breakdown. She's going to break it down for you.

She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fiction. And now she's going to break.