Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Mark Nepo on What It Means to Live with an Open Heart | EP 713

Episode Date: January 8, 2026

What if living with an open heart, especially in times of loss, uncertainty, and division, is not a matter of willpower or optimism, but a quiet and courageous practice of presence?In this episode of Passion Struck, poet, philosopher, and cancer survivor Mark Nepo joins John R. Miles for a deeply human conversation about acceptance, aliveness, and what it means to live with an open heart in a fractured world.Drawing on his lifelong body of work, including The Book of Awakening and his newest book, The Fifth Season: Creativity in the Second Half of Life, Mark explains that acceptance is not resignation but an act of cooperating with truth. Together, John and Mark explore why the heart is our strongest muscle, how immersion, rather than achievement, brings us to life, and why caring fully for what is right in front of us may be the most meaningful form of compassion we have.This episode weaves together stories of grief, creativity, aging, and meaning. From feeding a dying parent applesauce to the metaphor of the meteor that burns away what no longer matters, Mark reveals how life becomes clearer when we stop holding back.At its core, this conversation is an invitation to stay present even when life is difficult, to say yes to life even when it breaks us open, and to remember that our presence, here and now, truly matters.Passion Struck with John R. Miles was recently ranked #1 on FeedSpot’s list of the Top Passion Podcasts on the Web, recognizing the show’s ongoing commitment to thoughtful, human-centered conversations like this one.Check the full show notes here: All links gathered here, including books, Substack, YouTube, and Start Mattering apparelhttps://linktr.ee/John_R_MilesFor more about Mark Nepohttps://www.marknepo.com/Pre-order You Matter, Lumahttps://youmatterluma.com/The Fifth Season Companion ResourcesPractical reflections and contemplative prompts inspired by Mark Nepo’s teachings on presence, creativity, and aging with intention.Explore the companion guide: https://www.theignitedlife.net/p/the-courage-to-stay-awake-to-life-mark-nepoIn this episode, you will learnWhy acceptance is not about giving up, but about cooperating with truthHow the heart functions as our strongest muscle and most reliable compassThe difference between nostalgia and the healing use of memoryWhy dreams remain essential to aliveness in the second half of lifeHow immersion, not excellence, creates meaning and creativityA simple question that reveals whether something is life-giving or life-drainingHow the metaphor of the meteor explains why aging can bring greater clarityWhy caring deeply for the smallest detail connects us to the wider human storyWhat it means to say yes to life in a way that affirms that you matterHow widening your inner horizon helps right size fear, grief, and sufferingSupport the MovementEvery human deserves to feel seen, valued, and like they matter.Wear it. Live it. Show it.https://StartMattering.comDisclaimerThe Passion Struck podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Passion Struck or its affiliates. This podcast is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a licensed physician, therapist, or other qualified professional.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up next on Passionstruck. And if you're lonely, you say hello. Get out of the house. Doesn't mean that every interaction will be. Some may be awkward. Some may not work out. Some may be irritated. But you're engaged in life.

And so even as simply as instead of reading at home alone, reading a cafe with even if you never say hello to another person, you're around other life. you're exchanging presence and energy. So expand our sense of solitude to let others in so that the line between self and other blurs. Welcome to Passionstruck. I'm your host, John Miles. This is the show where we explore the art of human flourishing and what it truly means to live like it matters.

Each week, I sit down with changemakers, creators, scientists and everyday heroes to decode the human experience and uncover the tools that help us lead with meaning, heal what hurts, and pursue the fullest expression of who we're capable of becoming. Whether you're designing your future, developing as a leader, or seeking deeper alignment in your life, this show is your invitation to grow with purpose and act with intention. Because the secret to a life of deep purpose, connection, and impact is choosing to live like you matter. Hey friends, and welcome back to episode 713 of Passionstruck.

If you've been walking with me through the start of 2026, you know we've spent the last few weeks in what I call the season of becoming. We saw that before resolutions can stick, we need revelations. We reclaimed our worth. We practiced microchoices of courage. And just last week, we looked at the Dunbar Reset, the radical idea of shrinking our our world to the size our biology can actually handle. As we move into this first week of our new series, The Meaning Makers, a new question has emerged. Once we've cleared out the noise, what do we actually build in the space that's left behind?

On Tuesday, we started to answer this question with Dr. Steven Post. Looking at why pure unlimited love is a biological requirement for health. But that shift brings us to an inevitable question, how do we inhabit that pure unlimited? limited love without losing ourselves in the process. Becoming gives us the capacity to move, but presence is what allows us to actually be where we are once we arrive. Without it, we aren't living a life. We are just managing a series of events. Today's episode is one that sits close to my heart. I've been wanting to have this conversation for several years, and it comes at a moment in my life where its lessons feel especially present. I'm joined by

world-famous poet, philosopher, and cancer survivor, Mark Nipo, whose work has guided millions through grief, awakening, creativity, and the long arc of becoming fully human. Before we began recording, I shared with Mark something deeply personal that after my sister Carolyn passed away from pancreatic cancer, she chose one specific poem to read at her memorial. Mark's poem accepting this. Its lines captured her philosophy of life, and truthfully, it captures Mark's Mark's philosophy too. In our conversation we explore would inspire those words and how, in a world marked by division, disconnection and noise, we can reclaim the simple human practices that awaken the heart, presence, reverence, compassion, and the courage to hold nothing back. Mark takes us

into the meaning of acceptance, not as resignation, but as cooperating with truth. He explains why the heart is our strongest muscle, how to recognize whether what you're engaging in is life-giving or life draining and why immersion is what brings us alive. We discuss the creative life as a spiritual practice. The differences between nostalgia and the purposeful use of memory and the profound metaphor at the center of Mark's newest book, the fifth season, creativity in the second half of life, that as we age and life wears away what is no longer essential, we shine brighter. Before we dive in, a quick note on a project that mirrors these themes of inherent worth. We often spend our lives trying to rediscover the value we should have been anchored in as children.

A new children's book, You Matter Luma, is a bridge to that truth, a reminder that your significance isn't earned by your performance. It's a fact of your existence. You can pre-order it now at Barnes & Noble or You Matterluma.com. If this episode resonates, please share it with someone navigating a similar season. And if you haven't yet, a five-star rating or review on Apple Podcast or Spotify helps these conversations reach the people who need them most. You can also catch the full visual experience on our YouTube channel's Passion Struck Clips and John R. Miles. This is episode 713 of Passion Struck. What does it mean to live a creative, open-hearted life in the fifth season? And how do we become, as Mark says, students of the inside of everything? Let's begin the

meaning makers with Mark Nipo. Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. Hey friends, it's the beginning of 2026, and if you're like me, you didn't come into the sheer to coast. You came to live with purpose, to show up with energy, clarity, and intention. That's why how you start your day matters. And for me, that starts with Huel. Every morning, I reach for two things. First, Hule Daily Greens ready to drink. The peach and hibiscus flavor is crisp and refreshing, with 42 superfoods, vitamins, and minerals, all in just 25 calories, and one gram of sugar.

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Summers only. Thank you to Hewell for partnering and supporting our show. It is my profound honor today to welcome Mark Nipo to Passionstruck. Mark, it's such an honor to have you on today. I've been wanting to do this conversation now for about four years. So thank you so much for being here. Oh, you're so welcome. Thanks for having me. And as we were chatting before we started today, you were in one of my favorite parts of the country in Kalamazoo. I grew up as a kid going to cold water and I always love that area of the country. So I'm a little bit jealous, although here in Clearwater, it's probably a little bit warmer today than it is. It is for sure. Well, before we dive in, I want to begin really with

a personal note about the impact that your work has had on me and my greater family. Last year, my sister Carolyn passed away after a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer. And her final years, much like your own journey as a survivor, were marked by resilience, reflection and an unwavering commitment to living a life anchored in love and meeting. Over the last 10 years of her life, she became a Buddhist and living in the present moment was key for her. She, during that time, discovered her calling after she got this diagnosis, actually enrolled in a master's program in social work.

at the University of Texas, because she wanted to help other people navigate their very struggles that she had faced. And her life was really a testament to compassion, acceptance, and the quiet courage of showing up for others, so many things that you write about. When we were planning her memorial service, which she, in her typical fashion, dictated what she wanted, she made one very specific request, that your poem accepting this be read aloud. She felt it happened. her philosophy of life more clearly than anything she could have said herself and I wanted to say a couple lines that echoed through that chamber and through all of us we were outdoors in Austin reading this and as a Buddhist priest was saying your poem a butterfly went over his shoulders and through the scene which we all believe was sister and the words I wanted to say are We cannot eliminate hunger, but we can feed each other. We cannot eliminate loneliness, but we can hold each other.

We cannot eliminate pain, but we can live a life of compassion. And for those of us who were watching this, those words became not just a comfort, but a call to action that she wanted to ripple beyond her. For someone whose writing, Mark, has helped us through profound grief like that and someone who has stood at the edge of life and death, you understand the necessity for that kind of acceptance and compassion what inspired those lines in accepting this and in a time where the world feels increasingly divided how do we what you call the small living things awaken in the stream live into that final stanza thank you thank you it's

very touching for sharing that from your service with your sister well i think and let's back up a little bit when we talk about our time and things are very difficult and acute and polarized and I would back up and say that every generation, every age faces the same thing. The things that trigger us, the things that block us are different in each age and each generation. But this is part of the archetypal journey of being alive, being human, struggling to be awake, to stay awake, to remember who we are to ourselves and each other. So I think from my cancer journey, I'm 74 now. And if I met someone my age when I was younger, I thought they were ancient. It doesn't seem so old now. In my early 30s, I almost died from a rare form of lymphoma. And through that, I was turned inside

out and upside down. And through no wisdom on my part, I was jettisoned into learning a different way to be in the world in learning how acceptance we often misconstrue it. It doesn't mean resignation. It doesn't mean giving up. It doesn't mean just obeying whatever someone asks of us. Acceptance comes out of surrender. And I think surrender I've learned is cooperating with truth. So instead of fighting life, we stay in relationship with it. We work with it. And that's on a way in the ancient, all the spiritual traditions speak about this in different ways. But the Taoist tradition, the ancient Chinese tradition, Tao simply means the way.

They don't even try to name it. But the metaphor for it, which I so love, is that life is like an invisible river. and every soul is a fish in that river. And so the goal of every soul, every fish, is to find the current so you can swim with it. And that's the proper use of our will. That's the work of acceptance and not fighting, not insisting on what I want. But seeing, what am I being asked here to learn and contribute that will be? both feed my life and life in the stream of life.

That is really beautiful and profound. As I have dive deeply into your work, one of the things I've heard you say more recently is that the heart is our strongest muscle and that its work is to keep us awake to life. When you look at the world today, what does living from the heart actually require of us? Well, it requires that. So let's also back up here to say that, and again, this is part of the journey of every soul that comes into being, is there's an age-old argument, if you will. On the one hand, there's a tribe of thinkers throughout the generations who have said human beings are, they can't trust them. They're, if you don't have constraints and rules, they're going to,

They're going to be cruel. They're going to just go with self-interest. So we really need to clamp down on these strange beings. And there's the other, which I'm a part of that tribe of thinkers and feelers that says, no, human beings are innately good. And left to our own basic human nature, we will be kind and help each other and be more together than alone. And the things that block us come from, we can be blocked by others, by suffering, by the world we live in, by ourselves, by the wounds that we, but our job of awakening is how to repair from those blockages and wake up again. And the heart is, I believe, our strongest muscle, our strongest instrument. And the word trust literally means to follow the heart. And so we are asked not to bend life to us, but to inhabit life. And there was a Chinese philosopher Mensius in 300 BC.

And I loved he had this wonderful metaphor for this. He said that water, allowed its true nature, will always flow downhill and join other water. It can be manipulated, it can go even uphill or sideways or through a dam or a pipe. But allowed its true nature, it will flow and join other water. And he said, so too we. Allowed our true nature, we will flow and join with each other. We will help each other. We won't even think about it.

It'll be just innate. But we can be, we can manipulate ourselves and be, and I think we live in it now to come back to where, to our age and our turn. This is, and this doesn't minimize the suffering, the cruelty, the lack of compassion that we're seeing in our age globally. But it's our turn. Will we choose love over fear? Will we remove what's in the way? Will we remember? Oh, my God, it's you.

Oh. So I think that there are many things in our modern world that have almost like an inadvertent, perfect storm. I don't think anybody planned this. But we have the pandemic. We have technology, the insulation of social media. And we have this. I think one of the things that seems so simple, but it's so profound is many of us have lost our direct connection with life. And why is this important? Because when we are directly connected to life, we have a reverence for life. And if we have a reverence for life, we can't do harm. One of the things when we're not connected with life, our need to feel and be here doesn't go away. And so it comes out sideways. And in some ways, violence is a desperate last attempt to feel. it's we'll do anything to feel this is where the whole notion the psychological self-harm of cutting people who are so blocked from their heart so have no access to what they're feeling and to the

life around them that they still need to feel they still want to do something to open up and it comes out in very hurtful ways so i think and all the traditions give us ways to reconnect with life and each other. And so it starts with taking a risk. It starts with when we're closed, how do we open? When we're numb, how do we wake up? And I think it always starts with the risk to be present, to hold nothing back.

For me, and so all these states, we will experience them because, We're human. We're not going to eliminate it. But this is what it is to be a spirit in a body and time on earth. We're always course correcting. Oh, today I was too closed. Oh, today I gave myself away. Oh, today I listened and I lost myself. Oh, today I was stubborn. That's the work of self-awareness through the heart. How do I keep returning to the corridor of aliveness? And this is why you and I could work at the same office for year. And, oh, we're cordial, but we don't really know each other. And then one day, shortly after perhaps, you lost your sister, and shortly after perhaps I lost my father. And then now we say hello, and those walls are down, and we actually see each other.

And I go, oh, my God, I had no idea. It's you. Oh, here we are. Let's begin. What you have just captured is so profound, and it really is at the center of all the work that I'm trying to do. I see so many people today who are, whether you call it lonely, hopeless, nihilistic, whatever word you want to use. And I think the word I use for it is they feel invisible in their own life. They feel like they don't matter.

And when you lose that central feeling of mattering, you are just filled with a profound emptiness. and a lack of any direction that's giving you meaning. And I love your work on using the word love here. I happen to have Joshua Green, who's a Harvard psychologist and Dr. Rick Hansen, who you might be aware of yesterday on the show. And we were talking about how to expand the circle of moral concern. And Rick, in this chapter of his life, has created this foundation called the Global Coalition Circle.

And with this, he is trying to spread love through acts of compassion. And he's trying to get people to start compassion circles because we've lost this whole presence and connection in the communities that existed for millennia. So I'm completely in line with what you are saying and what you teach. Oh, thank you. And I think that one of the things that's important is when we think of the world, it's overwhelming. When we think of these huge, and it always has been, how do we reignite compassion all over the world? Well, when we think of it conceptually, it is overwhelming and can make us feel insignificant. But when we feel it through our heart, we become a part of it.

And that gives us resilience, and that's uplifting. And this is why all of it begins with the smallest detail. detail, the smallest step. So when I listen to you totally in your pain or whatever you're going through, then I am casting a stitch in the fabric of humanity. I'll give you a personal example of this that was so profound for me. And this was my father's gone now about almost 15 years. And toward the end of his life, he lived to be 93. And, I was visiting him in a hospital and he was, he had a stroke. And I mean, he could talk, but it was so much work, he just didn't.

But there I was, all of a sudden, and it was not a private room, and there was all kinds of noise and things clanging and people everywhere. But all of a sudden, I was feeding him applesauce with a spoon. And it was a very bittersweet, beautiful, sad, wonderful moment. And I just fell in, my whole life was in that moment, slipping the spoon so it didn't hit his teeth and him trying to swallow the applesauce and tearing, of course. And then I was surprised because I fell into a moment of wonder. by giving my all to that moment, that detail, I had tripped into the moment of every adult child who ever fed a dying parent.

And I was not alone. And so it's changed how I understand resilience by being authentic and holding nothing back and giving my all, not to change the world, but to the detail of the moment that opens to me, I can trip into the larger stream of the mystery of life. And that's where I was like a fish swimming in that stream. I was now, not by trying to swim in the stream,

not by trying to fix the world, but by meeting what, was presented to me with everything I had, I was in the stream with all of humanity. And so my encouragement is care for what's before you with all your heart. And it matters. It matters because we do not know, we do not know which gesture of wholehearted this will keep the world going. And so each day we are challenged to be fully here and to hold nothing back.

Before we continue, I want to pause on something important. Listening to Mark talk about swimming in the stream of life is one thing. Living it, especially when you're navigating the turbulence of the surface, is quite another thing. So many of you write to me saying, I want to be present, but I'm exhausted. I'm overwhelmed by the noise and I don't know how to find a current. That tension between the pressure to perform and the desire to be present is exactly what the season of meaning is all about.

That's why each episode in this series is paired with reflection tools inside the ignited life. We help you build the architecture to find your own current, asking questions like, am I acting as a glass, bitter and small, or a lake, expansive and fresh in this moment? What parts of my outer life need to flake off? so my inner light can shine brighter. Inside the ignited life, you'll find weekly reflection prompts that are tied to insights from our episodes and tools to help you move from the turbulence of the surface into the death

of being. You can join us at the ignitedlife.net.net.netedlife.net. Now, a quick word from our sponsors. Thank you for supporting those who support the show. Passion Struck Network. Now, back to my conversation with Mark Nipo. I can completely relate to what you were going through in a different context. My Papa, who was my hero, growing up when he got into his 90s, had developed dementia. And we faced the same onset that you were going through where he had forgotten, really had to care for himself. And it happened to me in a different way, not through feeding him, but just seeing all the memories in this brilliant person who was the head of

research at Kraft, that brilliant mind disappear was just so difficult to see from someone I respected so much. So I completely understand what you're saying here, and what I've heard you say previously is that immersion is whatever is before us, and that's what brings us alive. for someone who's not in one of these moments that you and I are referencing here, but they're in their everyday life, what does that immersion look like? And how do we know when we're holding back from it? I think in a very simple way, I use a very simple question to help me get a sense of that. And that is, is what I'm involved in, is what I'm giving myself to whatever it might be.

is it life-giving and heartening or is it life-draining and disheartening? That's like an inner barometer, especially when things seem complicated or tangled. I just come back to that question, is this life-giving and heartening or life-draining and disheartening? And if it's life-giving, even if it's difficult while I'm in. But if it's life-draining, what am I doing? And so likewise, if I don't feel, what's before me and what's in me. Well, there are usually two major kind of reasons, for me at least.

One is I'm blocked somehow. I have a wall or a wound or a fear or an anxiety that's not allowing me to be thorough and open. So then, okay, how do I identify where I'm blocked? That's the inner work so I can clear it out. The other is I may be just tired and I need to rest. I'm committed to being wholehearted, but there's some days I'm half-hearted. So it means it's like when you go to a famous museum and you want to take in everything. And after an hour, you're like, oh, my God, another masterpiece. Give me a break. No, there's not that's still a masterpiece.

We're just tired. We've got to rest so we can refresh and take it in again. And that's part of our journey as well. is to tend things, not push. To tend and not push. So I think that, and then also there is just that not everything, every day is gonna be, while life is divine and always miraculous,

again, because we're human, we come in and out of being able to fully apprehend it. There's a wonderful story from Einstein, was recall. calling it was a conversation with him about his early development of his mind and he shared that at the age of 11 he in a glimpse of intuition grasped all of euclidean geometry and he said and i knew the next day would be dull of necessity but we have these what's like life is like the ocean there's these crests and these swells and the waves crash. And because we're not always on the crest

of a wave, it doesn't mean there's something wrong. And so by keeping the heart open, we can discover the extraordinary and the ordinary. Mark, you have now written 25 plus books. I'm holding a couple of here in front of the camera that I think everyone knows the book of awakening, or at least millions of people do, but I have loved your work for years, but as I have understood, from hearing you talk, you knew you wanted to be a poet fairly early on in life. And I'm going to go in to have you tell this story here in a second. But when I was early in my life, I was serving as a naval officer. I was in Rhodes, Spain. And over there, it was really an interesting dichotomy between us Americans and the Spaniards who were in the military. And we would be in the office at 5.30 in the

morning working until it was dark. And our Spanish friends would roll into work around 9 a.m. They take a two-hour siesta in the afternoon and they would work into the evening. But I remember one of my close Spanish friends said to me, John, you Americans love to work and we work to live. and it reminded me of something that you said to your parents that I'm going to live a making instead of make a living, which I just love. Can you say into that line? When I was undergraduate, actually just to back up a bit, so when I was in high school, I first started writing because my first love was a year ahead of me and she went to college and I fell in love with someone else, and so it was my first heartache, and I was devastated.

And I wasn't a loner, but I hadn't experienced a real friend yet until I got to college. And so I started writing as a way to deal with the heartache. And I realized pretty quickly, I wasn't just talking to myself. I had begun a conversation with life and with the mysteries of life and the difficulties of life and the wonders. And so that was the beginning of my writing. And then when I realized in college that I was a poet and I didn't, I hadn't really written anything much, but I just knew it. And I was still learning what that meant. And I was the first in my family to go to college in the history of my family, a family of immigrants, Jewish immigrants.

And my father, who was a master woodworker, my mother was a book key. but they were both highly intelligent, grew up out of the Great Depression, were very survival-oriented for my brother and I, and they got a mystical poet for a son, like we didn't really speak the same language. And I came home as a sophomore, I think, in college, excited to tell them that I was a poet. And we were around the small kitchen table and we had the classic argument, my father escalating and you, yelling that, how are you going to make a living? And I don't know where it came from in me. And I just said, without missing a beat, I'm going to live a making. And it just frustrated the hell out of him.

And I spent the next several years trying to understand what came through me from my soul. And from the world of spirit was a deep instruction on how. to move forward to stay close to what it means to be alive. And I would share with you now all these years later that I've discovered, I think, over time that the creative process and the introspective process are really the same thing. I just happen to write it down because that's how I learn. And one of the reasons that I've been blessed to be prolific is that I've learned that writing is really listening and taking notes more than speaking my beliefs. And so I've been able to explore a lot because I write about what I need to know, not what I know.

If I'd written about only what I know, I would have written very little. And so this raises a whole thing. eat that's a paradox in life and that is we all whether the art is in living not in what we produce and and so this starts to move in into the fifth season my latest book about creativity in the second half of life because really what i'm exploring there is not that well now that i'm retired i can paint more or i can write more what i'm exploring there is Our life is the work of art. And by immersing ourselves, by devoting ourselves,

we take our place in the mystery of life. We live as fully as we can as holding nothing back. Our relationships become a work of art. And so another lesson from my father, which I learned a lot because he was a creative force as a master woodworker. And he built a 30-foot sailboat catch when I was a boy out of wood that I spent a lot of my youth on. And so I didn't learn a lot by him talking about creativity just by watching him. And I remember being 10 or 11, and we had a small home on Long Island, and the basement was where his workshop was.

And he was working because one of the things he would do as a hobby as well was he would carve half model. So what he would do is he would get blueprints for sailing ships from the 1800s, and then he would build them to scale, maybe six foot long. And they were half models because you would only build half, so you could mount them on a wall. So part of it was flat. And I remember watching him through the see-through stairs of the basement, and he was immersed with a tweezer, with a tweezers, black thread pulling two-scale rigging through the masts and the that what were dead eyes were turnbuckles they call them now today and he didn't know I was watching him and I didn't know what it meant but I've come to understand he was showing me the secret life of detail

this goes back to dealing with the one thing that's in front of you and I learned that he was so immersed. And this is interesting given what I learned by attending him when he was in his last years there in the hospital. But back then, he was so immersed that he was in the moment of everyone who ever built a boat. And so while what he, the work he did was excellent, it's about immersion, not excellence. Excellence is the byproduct. of immersion. If you light a flame, you don't have to work for it. It will give off heat by virtue of it being lit. And if we're immersed, we will do excellent work. But if we just strive for excellence, we may not be immersed. And we then the reward for immersion is the experience of

oneness and connection to life. And now we come back to reverence and doing no harm. And one of the things today when we get back to your question about someone who's not feeling connected who's feeling namu's feeling isolated what do you care about what can you immerse yourself in it doesn't have to be a big career it may be caring for one plan it may be bringing dinner to a neighbor it may who knows what it would be it could be stamp collecting can be working on cars it doesn't really like the soul wants us to throw care on the fire of aliveness yes so like any fire a fire doesn't care what kind of would you put on it and I don't think the soul or the life of spirit cares what care we put on the fire of aliveness just that we care I can completely

relate to what you're saying. For so many years of my life, I was chasing success. I was trying to chase happiness. And I found the more I chased, the emptier I became, and that none of that comes from trying to chase it. It comes from meaning in our lives. It comes from those who we surround ourselves with. And I think Victor Frankel got it right. We find meaning at work or in pursuing a creative element that we're passionate about. We find meaning in love. Love could be love of our partner, caring for someone who might be sick, love of another human being.

It could be a friend. It comes in suffering, and I think as Dak or Keltner teaches, I think it can come in moral beauty by doing acts of kindness to others. So I agree with you that when you start pursuing those things and you immerse your, yourselves in them. That is the secret that I found in this chapter in my life is that is bringing me more happiness and success than I ever felt before when I was trying to chase it. It becomes a result of having meaning and purpose and service in life. Yeah, I think absolutely, which doesn't mean that we don't do things. One of the things in our modern

world, we have rightly an emphasis on heart and being because we're so out of balance with thinking and doing. But ideally, I think like you need two good feet to walk, being and doing complement each other. And at their best, when we're fully inhabited, they're one and the same. Just like when we're really there for each other, it's hard. to know who's giving and who's receiving they really become the same thing yes and that is the reward for that deep immersion when and there is an epidemic of loneliness in our age and i know especially with young people and i was on it on an interview with a young editor in london a young woman who asked about this and i don't give advice i just share and you know what i share are examples not instructions and

myself speaking from my cancer journey in that and what came up was you don't interview ambulance drivers you take the first one and if you're lonely you say hello get out of the house doesn't mean that every interaction will be some may be awkward some may not work out some may be irritated but you're engaged in life and so even as simply as instead of reading at home alone reading a cafe where there are even if you never say hello to another person you're around other life you're exchanging presence and energy so expand our sense of solitude to let others in so that the line between self and other blurs i want to go into the fifth season here in a second but i want to ask you one more question

about the book of Awakening, which really was a turning point for millions of readers. And as I understand it, it's not something that immediately became a New York Times bestseller. It was out there for 10 years before Oprah discovered it, and then it had its own journey on the other side. But this book was written after your cancer journey. And what I've heard you say when you talk about it is you called the book short doses of what matters. Today, looking back, what rises to the top of that list? What matters more now than it ever did before? Well, thank you for that question.

I think I would return to that what matters most is being as fully present and wholehearted as we can be, knowing that we can't do it all the time. but how do I behold the life that I meet? Because I think one of the things about the fifth season to go to the latest book, it was the journey for every human being once we're here is to awaken so that there's as little as possible between what lives in here and what lives out here. And why I speak so much about authenticity is that I believe that when we're authentic, the practice and devotion to being authentic makes us a clear inlet between the inner life and the outer life, makes us kind and useful, makes us receptive. And that's an endless.

one of my books is the endless practice that staying that open is an endless practice because we're never done and there's a great metaphor for this which is in what's called an asiquia now in a sequa in the south it's actually the word comes from the arabic because in desert climates and you'll see what this means but in the southwest native americans for centuries and And assequia is a sluice way or a natural water flow, let's say from the top of a mountain where snow after winter will create a water course to the bottom of the mountain. And villages and tribes would settle there because there's a natural water source. It's right there. So naturally over a winter, debris would fill the assequia, trees, limbs would fall in it.

Animals would build nests, stones would erode, so that once a year at least there was a ritual where the entire tribe, including children and elders, would take a few days and from the top of the mountain to the bottom, clear out the assequious. So nothing was blocking the flow from source into the world. well this is a fantastic metaphor for a spiritual practice and what both collectively in relationships and families and towns and nations but in our own individual work and the asequia the source the waterway between spirit and our lives gets clogged not because we're deficient or stupid because it's natural. This is what experience does. And so we have to clear it out. So just like we would do a house cleaning every spring, at least once a year,

we each need our own form of cleaning out the pathway, the sluice way, between source and how we live in the world. So this gets back to what patterns, what patterns, what wounds, what patterns, what ways of close-minded and, closed-hearted thinking and feeling, what ways of assumptions and judgments, how do we make a practice of clearing that out so that we start with, I don't know, rather than I told you. Man, that really hit me, and I think you're still right. As I was immersing myself into the fifth

season, because I'm myself now the second half of life, one of the things that struck me that I find so true is you point out that the years behind us grow longer than the years ahead and when that happens the proper place of dreams and memory shifts and you say that dreams are the kindling of our liveliness and i love that because given my work centers on mattering that belief that our presence has weight meaning and value is so important so how do you think presence what you were just talking about memory and dreams, contribute to that feeling that we matter. Well, so this is one of the things as you from the book, a shift in our horizons. And as we age, so I'm 74. I'm hoping to live to 100. Who knows? But even there's more years behind and ahead. One of the things, it doesn't mean I don't

dream anymore. But often one of the liabilities of dreaming in our world is that without realizing it, we defer our better self to the future. Oh, when I do this, then I'll be whole. When I'm in that relationship, then I'll be happy. There's always a if then, oh, yeah. But what we do is when we're dreaming, we're actually putting forward some of our potential and possibility so that we can see it. so that the alive, we can then see where is that aliveness in us right now. How can we bring it alive now? And I think I've been helped with this because almost dying from cancer all those years ago. While I dream, it always boomerangs back, well, okay, what I have is now.

So if I'm dreaming that, how can I bring it alive now? And the same thing with memory. When we look back, which we tend to do as we get. older, okay. But the difference between what I try to uncover in the book as the helpful use of memory versus one that kind of entraps us, nostalgia entraps us. So nostalgia is when I look back to 20 years ago to a very wonderful experience and I go, gee, well, I wish I could have that again. I wish I could go back to Spain. Right. 25 again. But I wish I could have that again. But But what the helpful use of memory is, I go back to whatever that memory is to touch into what was alive then and trace it because that stream of aliveness is always there.

Oh, where is it showing up in me now? So just like we go back in memory to say, oh, yeah, where is that aliveness in me now? And I dream forward. well not forget going forward where can i trace it back so that both memory and dream help us realize what is once to be alive in us right now i want to switch to celestial topics here for a second i love how you use metaphors and there's one of the meteor that i think is really profound And the meteor is this idea that as we burn through what doesn't matter, we shine brighter. And I thought that this is an extraordinary metaphor.

How did that arrive for you? And what is it? Well, I think, yeah, metaphor. And again, it has been my native language. Even when I was a kid, I didn't know what metaphor was, but it was how the world's always spoken to me, how spirit has always spoken to me. And so what I want to share from that is every one of us has a gift. And part of our job of awakening and immersing and following our heart is to discover what our gift is and let it be our teacher.

Let it be our teacher. So the metaphor, just entering the second half of life myself and trying to understand from all the things I've been through, this paradox of how, while outwardly, yes, the body starts to, wear away and we have limited physical limitations but at the same time throughout our life of the spirit is deepening and broadening and expanding and illuminating and if we don't become a student of that then the limitations of the earthly body will take over and be way out of proportion so it's not reframing. It's not turning from one to the other. It's allowing both to accurately right size what our experience is as a spirit in a body in time on Earth. So I guess trying to live into all of that, this metaphor came about the meteor. So we know that meteor is very

few reach Earth because they burn up in the atmosphere. And so when a meteor starts, it's a certain size and as it moves through the atmosphere, more and more of it flakes off and it gets brighter and brighter until there's nothing left but light. And that became a teacher for me that, oh, this is what it's like to be a spirit in a body over a lifetime on earth. Throughout our life, we through the life of experience and gravity and wonder and suffering and beauty and erosion, our outer life flakes off and we become more and more light until the spirit leaves the body. And so nobody likes the flaking off. A year ago, I had major back surgery. I had fusion surgery so I have those titanium screws in my back and it's been my dad has a blessing you had that

too oh my father my father had that and it was a scary moment but he was in so much pain that he said it's given him a new release on life in some ways because he was in so much distress before that exactly and I felt it was so difficult since my cancer journey it was the most difficult thing I've been in. And the surgery has been a tremendous success. I'm so blessed. I'm thankful that I, and that was a flaking off. And I'm brighter for it. So there's just, again, it's not to deify suffering. It's like everyone has to deal with gravity. This is part of gravity. This is part of, but the opposite of the outer world has the force of gravity and the inner world has the emanation of spirit. And these two four, we live. We live.

live subject to these two amazing forces in the world. One of the things before we close, I wanted to make sure we talked about is throughout the book, you have stories of saying yes to life, and they're really powerful. I wanted to ask, in your view, what does it mean to say yes to a life in a way that affirms, I matter,

this moment matters, and what I give of myself matters. Yeah, so I think, that saying yes to life is again is not being obedient often we need to say no to situations and relationships and patterns in order to say yes to life saying yes to life and i come back down to means leaning in when pain and worry and fear push us away it means holding nothing back when we hesitate. It means loving again after we've been burned by love. It means never, and you may familiar with Leonard Cohen's hallelujah song. Yeah. So he talks about a broken hallelujah there.

And saying yes to life, this coincides with what I think the real meaning of the story of Job is. I don't think it's a blind obedience to God. I think it's a saying yes to life. by accepting and not turning away from all the hardships, that there's a mystery, there's a paradox. You and I could be on a raft at sea and a huge wave comes and smashes the raft and we're hanging on. That's not a good day for us.

And it doesn't diminish the majesty of the sea. And we are asked to hold both. That's the broken hallelujah. Not just, A, everything's wonderful. Don't worry, it'll work out. No. the fact that saying yes to life is there is a incomprehensible mystery that we're a part of. This is why you've heard the old proverbial question, is the glass half full or half empty?

Well, that is really not helpful for me because it's always both. And our job in the broken hallelujah in saying yes to life, in facing life and embracing life is how do we relate to both? How do we let both be a teacher? How do we open our heart to the mysterious wholeness of life that is both fragile and gentle and at times harsh and can break us and break us open? And that's where the work of being a spirit in a body and time on earth is. And no one knows how to do this, which is why we need each other. I think that I've come to think that life is made just difficult enough so we need each other to ensure the journey of love. And it's bouncing back and forth from positive to negative, from true to false, from is again like that question.

It's not helpful. Yeah. Because it's always both. Yeah, it's definitely both and one of the most important shifts I think we need to make. that is a much bigger part of Eastern thinking than it is for us in the West, or it's more either or, which I found throughout my career. Well, the last thing I wanted to talk to about, Mark, and you've talked about this already in the way you wrote about in the book, which is, one of the most profound ideas is shift

and horizons, and you've talked about how much of life we look forward and then we look back, but I want to talk about shift and horizons a little bit differently. I have a really good friend of mine who I went to college with, known for three decades now, who was the chief astronaut at NASA. And he tells me that one of the most profound things for him was being up in the ISS and having that opportunity to look down. And he said it completely shifted the horizons in his life because he started to realize the true idea of a ripple of kindness. or a ripple of love or a ripple of compassion when you're looking from above how it could impact the world. And from that moment on, he would do these things

that no one knew about where even if he was up in space, he would telephone or find out about a sick child who might be suffering from cancer and he would call them just to brighten their day or he'd go on treks in the Amazon forest to bring awareness to climate change or he would kayak to help bring awareness to suicide in veterans who would do all these things, but so much of us don't have that opportunity that he did.

How can more of us shift our horizons? I think that certainly, and those are amazing things you shared, certainly we can ready ourselves, but I don't know that we can will, will a shift in her. horizon. And so this is where I think that great love and great suffering have always been the great teachers. And we usually grow human beings by two major ways, many, but two major ones, one by willfully shedding and the other by being broken open. And if you don't want to willfully shed, don't worry, you'll be broken open. And it's usually a combination of both. And what, you know, your friend has shared, which I totally agree with, is when we are broken open or we are loved open, or we willfully shed the parameters of what we know so that we can grow, we glimpse the wholeness of life, like seeing the earth from space.

and that changes everything because while we want to live the moment that we're in seeing things from the whole changes and again it's both we talk about this is where the Native Americans are famous for saying every decision needs to be considered from the perspective of seven generations but we're still chopping wood to warm the fire to keep the family warm. To only see from above or beyond is conceptual. And to only be in the moment is to be at the mercy of the turbulence of life. And we are asked to inhabit both.

On a way that I understand this, another metaphor from the sea is we look at any part of the ocean, we see the surface and we see waves. Well, actually, if you look below, you can't tell where a wave stops and the deep begins. It's all one water. But if we only stay on the top 18 inches or two feet, we will be bounced around in the turbulence of the surface, which is always being disturbed by weather, by living in the world. If we feel, we don't leave the surface but if we allow all of that water if we so i would say to you that top foot or two that is the waters of our psychology that meets the world every day but now if we are allowed to go below or we are allowed to go into the depth of life we are allowed to go

beyond just the framework of our opinions, whether it's going out to see the earth from space, or in to see all like my father in that moment of applesauce, everyone who ever fed a dying parent in the depths, that depth takes the edge off the turbulence of the surface. And that is the depth of spirit and being. When we live in the surface, and so what happens when we're living is we're talking about this. We're more in the depth right now. Now we'll get off this wonderful talk,

and I may take the garbage thing down to the curb and trip and skin my knee. And now I'm, by its very nature, I'm drawn into the surface. but I don't have to stay there. I can feel I can't it's not running from it, but by going back into the depth of being that right sizes. We have to live in both. So let me give you like an example and a story.

So the example is I go back to when I was going through, especially before my back surgery, the incredible, as your father knows, pain that I was in, I'd never experienced chronic pain before. I was right here at my desk. My studies on the second floor in our home. And I could have worked on the first floor.

I wanted to be in my study. Well, during that time, it took me like a half hour to get up the stairs because I had to take each step, wait for the pain to stop, lean on the banister. Okay. So an example of what we're talking about now is I would sit here and I couldn't escape the pain and the fear that was in me. But I had to start to ask, okay, the whole world and life is not in pain and afraid right now. I am. So where is the nearest thing to me that's not afraid or in pain? It was the floor beneath my feet. It's the ceiling of this study.

It's the sky above the ceiling. It's the earth that's holding up. the foundation of our house and not escaping my pain and fear, but allowing myself to feel it and what is holding it is akin to your friend, helping a child, but seeing the earth from space. So the story, which is, I love these anonymous teaching stories from centuries. This is an ancient Hindu teaching story about how to meet pain and fear, which also speaks about this in a very wonderful way. So in this story, it's an ancient Hindu story, there's a master and an apprentice, always. And the master of the truth be known finds the apprentice very annoying because all he does is complain about why. So the master says to him, I want you to get a handful of salt.

put it in the glass of water and bring it to me quietly. So he does. And the master says, drink from the glass. So he drinks. He spits it out. And the master says, what's the matter? And the prentice says, it's bitter. Master says, I want you to get the same exact amount of salt, cup it in your hands, and follow me quietly. And he does. And the master leads him to a lake. He says, put the salt in the lake he does he says now drink so this student kneels he scoop some water it dribbles down his chin the master says well and he says oh it's fresh and the master says stop being a glass become a lake stop being a glass become a lake look from the whole perspective of the earth from the ocean of spirit be where you are but let everything in

Because what that ancient anonymous story is saying is we will never eliminate fear and pain, but we can right-size it by enlarging our sense of things. By enlarging our sense of things. So we may hear this story, people who are listening with us and say, well, it's not good to be a glass. I won't do that. Well, yes, you will. And I will. And you will. Because that's how fear and pain say, hello. But we don't have to stay there. So the practice question, the daily practice question is what experiences, relationships, and practices, yes, experiences, relationships and practices are in your toolbox to enlarge your sense of things when you stumble into fear and pain and worry and numbness and despair. So you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Yeah. And even there may be times when I know what I need to do and I can't do it. And then I got to call you up and say help. Mark, it has been such a profound honor to speak with you today.

If you could leave one thing for listeners to carry with them as they're entering the fifth season, what do you hope they will finally release? Well, I think what I would offer, do we go back to the heart? being our strongest muscle and our finest instrument is to trust our heart and I encourage people not to think that everything that's in the way is a problem or a deficiency but a teacher. We're in our world, modern world, we've been mistought to think we're entitled to a obstacle-free existence and no obstacles nobody loves obstacles but they're not demons they're teachers and what's in the way is the way and that's how our light goes brighter and how our heart shows up for each other

mark thank you so much for joining us today on passion struck i know this will be a fan favorite thank you so much for everything you have done for so many people throughout these 27 books of knowledge that you have put out in the world, which I know as you were writing them, I know you hoped that they would touch people, but you probably never in a million years thought they would touch as many people as they have. Not at all. It's beyond anything I imagine. I'm just so grateful. And thank you, John. Wonderful to be with you. That's a wrap on today's conversation with Mark Nippo. What stood out to me most from today's episode is his definition of surrender. Not as giving up, but as cooperating with truth. It's the realization that we don't need to bend life

to our will. We just need to inhabit the life that is already here. When we stop fighting the current and start swimming with it, we don't just find ease. We find aliveness. But that brings the next structural challenge. How do we know what is actually true? In an age of misinformation and divided minds, how do we distinguish between our own intuition and the knowledge that we've been fed? That's exactly what we explore next. In our upcoming episode next Tuesday, I'm joined by Steve Sleman. Steve is a cognitive scientist and author of the knowledge illusion. We're going to deconstruct the boundary of the mind exploring why we think we know more than we do and how the illusion of knowledge can actually prevent us from finding true meaning. If Mark Nipo helped us

explore the spirit of presence, Steve Solomon will help us understand the cognitive mechanics of how we perceive our world. If you really want to make good decisions, you need people with contrasting views to yours, right? You don't necessarily need them to generate ideas, to generate hypotheses, but you need them to test those ideas. Like the best way to perfect your own thinking is to describe it to someone who disagrees with you vehemently. And that way, you'll construct really good arguments. Before you move on today, I'd encourage you to pause. Look at the one thing right in front of you, the smallest detail.

Can you give it your full immersion in just 60 seconds? That small stitch is how we repair the fabric of our lives. If you want to support these ideas, join me inside the Ignited Life at the IgnitedLife. And remember, to check out You Matter Luma for a reminder that you are significant. just as you are. As we move through the meaning makers, remember, significance doesn't come from doing more. It comes from doing what aligns consistently and with care. Until next time, I'm John Miles. You've been passion struck.