The Rich Roll Podcast - Disrupting Depression With Guru Singh

Episode Date: September 21, 2018

Welcome to another edition Guru Corner — a spiritual version of my popular Coach's Corner series featuring my favorite teacher on all things mystic and metaphysical, Guru Singh. For those new to the show, imagine a modern-day Gandalf who rocks like Hendrix while dropping pearls of wisdom that beautifully fuse Eastern mysticism with Western pragmatism. A celebrated third-generation Sikh yogi, master spiritual teacher, author, and musician, for the past 40 years Guru Singh has been studying and teaching Kundalini Yoga. He is the author of several books, a powerful lecturer and behind-the-scenes guide to many a luminary, including Fortune 500 CEOs, athletes, and artists. A peer of rock legends like Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead, Guru Singh is also a supremely talented musician who began his recording career on Warner Bros’ Reprise label in the 1960s. When he isn’t recording tracks with people like Seal, he’s bringing down the house on the daily at Yoga West, his Los Angeles home base. Over the last couple years, I have grown quite close with Guru Singh, a beautiful and highly relatable consciousness I’m proud to call friend, family and mentor. It’s a privilege to share more of his powerful wisdom with you today. Today's conversation is an intimate exploration into the depths of our darkest emotions — shame, grief, sadness and depression — and the lessons they hold. We discuss the process of releasing our attachment to ideas and identities that no longer serve us. How to navigate the pressures of our modern existence, embrace tumultuous times, and serve the planet as it serves us. And we mine the truth that all of us — irrespective of circumstance — possess the ability to overcome our circumstances and transcend our perceived limitations. My hope is that this conversation will empower you to more deeply invest in the development of your conscious awareness, personal boundaries, and spiritual growth. Because, to quote Guru Singh, life is not about controlling the outside world, it's about mastering perceptions from the inside. Note: If you missed our initial conversations, start with episode 267 and then enjoy episodes 332 and 368. Final Note: The visually inclined can watch our entire conversation on YouTube HERE (just make sure to subscribe!) Let the master class resume. Peace + Plants, Rich

Shame for sadness, shame for depression, shame for grief is something that we need to remove through education. We need to inform people that their grief is good, that their sadness is of value, and that their depression has some message. If you give yourself the opportunity to go through that cycle, then it won't become chronic depression. It will become deep depression, maybe even deeper than the cycles of chronic depression, but it will be fully experienced and then relieved from the psycho-emotional body. That's Guru Singh, and this, my friends,

is another edition of Guru Corner on The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How are you guys doing? What is happening? How are you? Hey everybody, how you guys doing? What is happening? How are you? My name is still Rich Roll. I am still your host. Welcome or welcome back to the show. So right now, this moment just felt like an appropriate time to drop another midweek installment of my burgeoning, my ongoing Guru Corner series, where we take a beat, we take a moment to pause, to get grounded, to reflect on the human condition, to ponder matters mystical and metaphysical.

And our guide through all of this is none other than Kundalini Yogi, meditation teacher, master consciousness, in my opinion, and my good friend, Guru Singh. In an effort to streamline this intro and get into the episode more quickly, and also because Guru Singh is a show regular, this is his fourth appearance on the podcast, I'm going to dispense with a long-winded bio. If you are new to the show and want to know more about the who, what, and why behind guru sing i

suggest starting with episode 267 where we dive into his whole backstory and life and then you can enjoy episodes 332 and 368 as always links are in the show notes today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices.

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go of identities that no longer serve us, not judging or forecasting our future by our present circumstances, and really understanding that we all, all of us have the ability, the acumen, the reserves to transcend our circumstances. And with that, I give you the great Guru Singh. Okay, yeah, cool. Were you ready to go? Yeah. We're rolling.

We're rolling. Good to see you, my friend. No, no clap. No clap, no cano, we're just in it. We're in it, man. Great to have you out here. You're looking as stylish as ever, of course, and love to see the smile on your face. So let's just open it up, man. How are you doing? What's going on? Doing very well. You know, it's interesting. You hear about all that's going on in your world, in the world,

and then you look down at your dog or your cat, and they're just cool. Yeah. And so I look down and I go, oh, everything must be cool, because they're just going, lunchtime, dinnertime, you know? It's like, we're good. Could we live so simply? Yeah, well, future would probably be that simple. When we learn, because we've, you know, I love to make up words.

We've complexified the world for the purpose of selling products into it, right? Yeah. And this is what causes a great deal of the malaise of the current moment, right? Depression and grief and sadness and all of that, because people don't necessarily get what they consider their fair share of the deal. Well, we're constantly bombarded with messages intended to convince us that happiness lie in the next purchase, in the luxurious item, in the fancy vacation, in the new car, in the nice watch, all of these things. And when you intuit that from birth and you find yourself unable to

access those items, it's no mystery why it makes people angry or upset. why it makes people angry or upset. And when they start to believe that someone else may be taking their items away, then we start to become bigots. We start to have attitudes towards those who are maybe willing to do things that we're not willing to do. And hence this whole process that we're going through right now with migration. They call it immigration.

It's not immigration. It's migration. It's been happening for millions of years. And it's when you've eaten all the grass in one location, you move on to another, right? Or when the forest burns down in your one location, you move on to another. And it's interesting, the idea of nation states,

because the idea of nation states is speaking on this podcast, which is very vegan and plant-based. Territory is a carnivore's world, and territorial protection is a carnivore's world. Explain that. The only creatures on earth that mark their territory are carnivores. that mark their territory are carnivores. Every other creature is a grazer and welcomes others to graze with. So the herd mentality of the cloven hooves

as opposed to the claw mentality of the padded hooves is an interesting phenomenon. And human beings went through a transition because of the ice ages from plant-mainly based to carnivore because they couldn't find the foods that they were capable of digesting. So they ate the creatures that ate the food that they couldn't digest. They ate the creatures that ate the food that they couldn't digest. Well, I think it was an evolution from primarily herbivorous to not a hunter-gatherer culture, but a gathering hunting culture, right? Meat was still hard to come by.

Plants were perhaps easier. And so the animal products were the luxury, right? The result of the persistent hunt. Interesting choice of words. Why? The luxury. Luxury, right? Yeah.

Well, to this day, it's still considered a luxury. It is. When you see the rise of the middle class in China and in India with sections of those cultures coming into disposable income for the very first time, there's a sense of entitlement. Like, okay, now we can eat these products that have been traditionally the purview of the well-to-do. And then you introduce all the fast food restaurants and meat consumption is skyrocketing in those populations as a result. Yeah. And it's all just a fantasy because the biology tells us to do differently. And herbivores have a digestive tract

that is five times the height or length. And carnivores have a digestive tract that is one and a half times the height or length. And we obviously have the longest digestive tract because it's that incredible formation within the small intestine, which is, they say that they'll be able to perhaps reproduce every organ on the body except for the small intestine, because it's so complex that nothing can, they can't figure it out, you know, and how to print it, 3D print or whatever they're going to do. and how to 3D print or whatever they're going to do. The idea that we have this elongated system in order to break down plant-based proteins

and formulate the animal-based proteins is a fact that we should pay attention to. But back to the idea of this constant, which you were saying, this constant need to access the luxuries and the putting of the happiness and the fulfillment on the outside of us is coming to a screeching halt

because as we have mined the planet and extracted so much from underneath, if you look at the planet as a living body, we're going down there and we're pulling out some of the planet's deepest organ and glandular systems processes. I mean, the oil is deep in the earth, really, really deep in the earth. And there are some jewelers around the world that work with what they call ripe gold. And that's gold that is actually brought, come to the surface and usually appears in riverbeds in the form of gold nuggets.

And they say that the gold that is being mined and leached through the chemicals that they leach the gold ore through in order to come out with something that is of value, that that gold energetically, vibrationally, is unfit for humans to wear. Because why is that? Because it's not ripe yet. It's like eating unripe fruit. If we were to take our entire view of what is happening on earth and realize that we're just the fleas that are on the body of the earth, then the same thing that's going on within our body, just like the same thing that goes on within

the body of a flea, is going on inside of the host's body. So the planet earth, a living creature, you know, fully invigorated, we're carving into it. We're sticking. It's like we're these gigantic mosquitoes with these long, long snouts, you know, sucking some of the deep fluids out of this creature and burning them on the surface. Yeah. Well, you can kind of understand the argument why we do that for oil because it serves a purpose that fuels the necessities of living this modern life. But when you think about things like diamonds and gold, it's preposterous.

I mean, you realize like how silly and infantile the human brain is that it sees this thing that shines a certain way and decides that this is to be coveted it's like continuing completely bizarre i know and to think that that has value and that we should be on a gold standard or a silver standard or what have you is bizarre but going back to your, you can understand, you said, you can understand why we, you know, drill deeply into the earth, you know, to pull out. It's the same as a mosquito. The mosquito sticks that needle deeply into your vein to suck out something that it feels it rightfully deserves. I mean, it doesn't go to your body and say, okay, I'm going to do this. I know it's illegal, but I'm going to do it. No, for its life, it knows that it's okay. For our life, I'm just waiting for the earth to scratch. To smack us.

Exactly. Well, it's rearing its hand. It's getting ready for it, I think. The metaphor of it's rearing its ugly head is not an appropriate metaphor at that point. It is getting ready. Look what's happening on Hawaii with the gushing of the volcano, the hurricane that just went by. Some people said they couldn't believe it. There were floods coming down the street at the same time that there were buildings on fire from the volcano. Yeah, it's truly apocalyptic. Apocalyptic. It looks like, what is that, Blade Runner? Yeah. Well, in Hawaii, with it occurring right in the midst of this development, there's homes all over the place and the earth is just literally erupting. And it makes you realize that we really are a tiny mosquito, that we're utterly powerless.

Absolutely. And we take for granted this planet that we live on, and we believe that it's in some sort of status quo, that it's static, that it will always be the way that it is. And it only takes a little ripple like that to remind us of how of how small we are and i think you know whether there was an evolutionary purpose served by it or not we're unable to really appreciate um uh time in a way that allows us to uh proceed with a little more humility, a little more light-footed in how we kind of traverse this blue spinning orb that we're all in. You said a phrase that is commonly used, this planet that is here to serve us. And then we reverse that phrase and say that we're here to also serve it.

that phrase and say that we're here to also serve it. And in that bidirectional act of service, we can live in harmony. But when we're taking more from the planet than we are returning to the planet, that's when we start to live outside of that orchestrated harmony that nature has found so common. This is what happens, take it from the planet, take it to this body that we have here. When we're pulling more out of the body, when we're depleting the body, and not investing into the body, that's when we get to this place of depression. Because think about the word depression. Depression in meteorology is when you have a low pressure area and a high pressure area. And so depression within our somatic being, within our physical being, within our psycho-emotional being, is just that we have less pressure inside than is outside.

And because of what we've just been describing thus far, it's a high-pressure existence on this planet right now. And if we don't find the ways of exuding the same kind of impression, we will be depressed. So if we're not able to impress, we will become depressed. And some of this is genetic. You learn it through your cellular structure or because genetics follows closely with the social structure of families, We learn it by mimicking our family around us. Then we learn it from friends. Then we learn it from all kinds of ways

that we perhaps don't have the right to impress as much. And over years and years of this, it compounds to the point of where depression literally feels like what happened to me in old Mexico, where I was, you know, for the sake of going through a rite of passage, I was buried alive. And the sensation of not being able to move is a phenomenon that is only known to those who've been buried under earthquake rubble, who have been buried alive. But think of it as a psycho-emotional sensation. Being deeply depressed is so common in today's world. We have soldiers coming back from wars. We have people not able to meet their needs. We have people out of work. We have homeless. We have all of these categories. Yeah. I think depression is the number one cause of disability. I may be wrong about

that, but if it's not number one, it's close to it. And I don't know the statistics or the exact numbers, but yeah, it's debilitating people in an unprecedented way, in a way that we have never before seen in the history of humankind. So what is contributing to that? Well, is it our fast-paced modern society? Is it overpopulation? Is it the stress and anxiety that is part and parcel of how we live today? Is it this Madison Avenue fueled culture that always makes us feel less than, that compels us to measure ourselves against our peers? Is it the fear that the nightly news instills in us that creates the zero-sum game,

making us think that if someone else gets this, that they're taking away from you. I would imagine it's all of these things and many more that are contributing to this state of desperation, this quality of mental illness that is moving us further and further away from our natural state of connection, communion, and divinity. Think of the word that you just used, desperation. Desperate, right? It means without spirit, without inspiration, without that enthusiasm.

And what I believe is that all of these things are contributing that you just mentioned, but none of them are the cause. The cause is that with this much contribution to the state of affairs that we have, the fast pace, the Wall Street, the this, the consumption, what have you, we're not being prepared to live in that world. prepared to live in that world. You know, they say that if you took a doctor and an accountant and an engineer and a school teacher from the 1800s and brought them into the 21st century, the only one that would recognize their task is the school teacher. And so the world through the

engineers and the medical science and everything else that has come along to build the modern world of the 21st century, has been going along at its pace. And that pace, perhaps, is accelerating. But education hasn't prepared anyone for the new way of living. Education is still stuck in the world of the three R's, which is obviously a misspelling of the words. But the idea that kids are dropping out of school and that there's people with dyslexia and people with what they call ADD, ADHD, these are not disorders. These are new orders. these are not disorders these are new orders as you can see from this art right here this is somebody that has a new way of looking at things and we're not addressing those people with our education and consequently people are coming out into the world completely unprepared for the world

and therefore the world has more pressure than they do, and therefore they become depressed. Yeah. Well, a couple observations. First of all, I think that's beginning to change. We're seeing more and more people deciding not to go to college, for one thing. And I think it was just last week that Google and at least one or two other of the huge tech companies came out and said, we're no longer requiring a college diploma for applications for employment. I mean, that's a

huge change when you think about that. They're basically decoupling that nexus that has always existed between higher education and upward mobility, which I think is fascinating. That is a good one, isn't it? is so outpacing our evolutionary ability to adapt. You know, we're still, we're evolutionarily, you know, built into our GNA, into our genetic code is a life that looks like whatever's going on in the, you know, the indigenous tribes of Africa. And if you go to those places, you always hear

these stories. Oh, I went to India. I went to Peru. I went wherever it is. And people who spend time with cultures that are relatively immunized from the way that we live, realize how much happier they are, how much more connected they are, how much more communal they are, and content. They have all of these things that we're trying so desperately to build into our own lives, but which continue to elude us because the very things that contribute to that which we seek, we've decided are either optional or not important. And even after having that experience, we may have that epiphany. And yet after returning to our lives,

we slowly sort of return to how we're always living. And we fail to make those changes that would allow us to experience life in the way these people are. One of the things that education doesn't educate is the emotional body. We get some physical activity. When you said people are choosing not to go to college, I thought to myself, people are choosing not to go to football games. Because the big deal about colleges now is football stadiums that cost $100 million. And it's all about the ranking of football.

It's the ranking of basketball. It's March Madness and all of these things. And these higher educational facilities have been co-opted into this whole spectator sport adventure and have not really kept up with the times. Consequently, people that are really brilliant don't find any reason for themselves to be in that environment. But going back to that sense of not educating the emotional body, think about these. Depression has a value because when you're depressed, you can go into some pretty deep places, some pretty dark places.

And when you go into those places with the sense of, let me explore rather than let me feel horrible. Those deep places can find character, can find parts of your being that are able to come forward that would never be noticed if you were just giddy and happy all the time. And the same thing with good grief, right? Grieving, sadness, grief. These are also valuable moments, but they're not moments that we should use if we want to go back to the idea of a diet.

We shouldn't use them as entrees. We should use them as maybe spices or maybe side dishes to the main course. The main course, our focus on becoming enthusiastic, becoming inspired, becoming fulfilled, that's our main course. With side courses that are either warning signs or augmenting components like salt augments the food. So depression and grief and sadness are all things that when they come upon us, we should go into fully, but giving ourselves the space. I'm going to take a sick day because I'm feeling really sad.

And let me go into this sadness. Let me process this sadness. Let me gain the messaging from this sadness, just as if I was to take a sick day because I've got the flu. Yeah, these emotional states are part of what it means to be human, to embrace and accept the fact that it's perfectly natural and fine to experience sadness, to experience grief, to experience intermittent bouts with depression. This is all fine. And I just have to make a correction here. I don't ever do this, but Rich, I'm just going to make a correction here. I don't ever do this, but Rich, I'm just going to make a correction. You said what it takes to be human. I saw your dog be sad in a moment because he couldn't come in. He couldn't come in here and hang out with us. I know. Poor girl. Poor girl. She went, aw. Maybe we'll bring her in for round two. But yeah, I mean, it goes back to the messages that we receive about what's okay and what's not okay in this collective experience that we're having.

And we're kind of taught like you should actually compound that by being ashamed or feeling bad about yourself because you're experiencing something that you feel like you shouldn't be experiencing. And of course, that's at cross purposes with how we're kind of wired, right? But I think there is a difference between that sine wave of emotional experience that we all have versus chronic states of depression. And that's really kind of what I'm focused on is this incredible increase in persistent, chronic states of depression that people are experiencing. And whether that, and you were saying like that you disagreed with me about what the cause of that is, but I want to go a little bit deeper into that.

No, I said I agreed with you that they were part of the equation, but that the cause was that we're not prepared. Think about chronic. What about chronic flu? chronic flu. That you go through a winter and you get it, you seem to be well, you go out and do something energetically, you get a relapse.

You get it, you go through it, you seem to be well, you go out and do something energetically, you get a relapse. What's not happening? What is not happening is that there's not a full forced cure. So if I'm to go into my flu or if I'm to go into my depression and I can fully experience the experience, as the Buddha

said, anything fully experienced, any of the emotions fully experienced will ultimately become its base factor, which is joy. Because going in, and I've been depressed, we've all been depressed. we've all been depressed. The difference between someone who has the awareness or the knowledge when that depression comes on is the same as when someone has the awareness or the knowledge you just passed the frog

when the flu comes on. If you can go into and fully work with that flu germ and get it so that it's completely removed from the body after you've gone through the cycle, it's the same way with depression, with sadness, with other things, with grief, etc. Think about the grief of people dying. I've had three or four people just recently reach out to me because someone very, very dear to them has passed away. And that idea of shame, that you need to grieve in private, or that you should wear dark glasses at a funeral

so to hide the tears that are rolling down your face. All of this is exactly what you were saying, that crossed purposes, that shame for sadness, shame for depression, shame for grief is something that we need to remove through education. We need to inform people that their grief is good, that their sadness is a value, and that their depression has some message.

And just like the flu, if you give yourself the opportunity to go through that cycle that you were just mentioning, then it won't become chronic depression. It will become deep depression, maybe even deeper than the cycles of chronic depression, but it will be fully experienced and then relieved from the psycho-emotional body. Right. So in other words, what you're saying is if somebody is experiencing a depressive state, that there is something built into that, like a teachable moment, something to be learned, if you fully embrace it, if you just allow yourself to get swallowed up in it, I suppose, for lack of a better word, to really feel it rather than resist

it and try to surf the wave and learn what is trying to be spoken to you. Through that, whatever message is trying to be conveyed is a trajectory out of it. But I'm imagining somebody who maybe is listening to this or watching this who is thinking, I've had chronic depression my whole life, or I'm a manic depressive, or I've been battling this since I was a child, constantly in pain.

I've tried to understand, I've done everything, I've tried to do everything, and it's just, this is how I'm wired. I need to be medicated for this. And feeling defensive at what you're saying. I agree. I could see that being provocative for somebody who suffers. And so I would say that do not take my words as being absolute,

or even that they're my absolute perspective. There are so many contributing factors to sadness, grief, depression, and all of those emotions. And some of them are genetic. Some of them are truly biological and chemical. To be able to take medication is important in today's world. We have evolved to have those kinds of substances that we can take to help balance out chemistries. But I would say to the audience, to just take the medication is going to resolve symptom, but it's not necessarily going to disrupt source. And so what you want to do is you don't want to be overwhelmed by the symptom. So you continue to take your medication,

but then you also add to it something that's going to disrupt the source code of that, what you call wiring. And that is, there are so many things available. I mean, just the activities that you do, you know, the bike rides, the swims, the runs, the activities that I do, the yoga, the meditation. Well, you also do those too. And these are all things, the long walks on the beach, the conversations with loved ones, the other things that we can do to help to rewire that network. And if the network is, you know, biological, if it's inherited from your parents, if it's inherited through your bloodline, you're going to have to do more work. But in our tradition of yogis and mystics, what we understand is that we're a soul and body. And what you have is a body with a particular code, with a particular formula.

And the body that I'm in or the body that one of our listeners are in, viewers are in, may be a body that is prone towards sadness, grief, depression. depression their task in this life is to not only take what they need to take so they're not overwhelmed by it but find a pathway to change it because anything that is biological and that is the chemistry of our physical body is mutableable, is changeable, is transformable. And so, I mean, you know and I know all of the people that have been working with diabetes and plant-based diet have found miraculous changes. People would never believe 10 years ago, 20 years ago,

that diabetes could be assisted by a change in diet. Yeah, I mean, it's a shift in our perception of agency over our lives. Like we never were taught that. I love that word, by the way. Agency. Agency. Yeah, the idea that we actually can exert some control in how we live our lives and what we eat, how we move, how we interact with other people is a new concept for a lot of people who have been taught from birth that we should divest

ourselves of that agency and vest it in the hands of the professionals. So when we feel depressed and we go to the shrink and after one session, they prescribe a medication. We say, well, that's the professional and that's what we should do. And I would agree with you that medication has its place and its purpose. These are miracles of Western culture that we've developed to treat these conditions. But I would say that systemically, our approach has gone too far in that we're so quick to medicate. We over-medicate, we medicate first, and then the real work of unpacking what is contributing to this and how we can confront it and ultimately overcome or transcend it gets pushed to the side. So just like we're treating chronic health conditions

with drugs that deal with the symptoms but not the underlying causes, I would say that we default to that same approach with respect to mental illness and disease in so many ways. And I say this with the caveat that I'm not chronically depressed and I've never had to take an SSRI. SSRI, is that what they're called? A medication for any kind of mental disorder or depression. So I can't speak from experience. But just observationally to know that so many people, I mean, how many people do you know

that are on one or more of these types of medications? I mean, it's endemic that we need a new, a new way of confronting this because these, the incidence of depression is only on the rise. And as we know, like these medications seem to work or they work with some of the symptomology, but then they either stop working or you got to change the medication that you got to take a new medication for the side effects of the first one. And it's ad infinitum. There was a, there's a guy called,

I'm interested in whether you're familiar with this guy, Johan Hari, who wrote a book called Lost Connections. I'm trying to get him on the podcast, but this is an amazing book that really takes a really hard, deep look at this depression problem and what is contributing to it. And what's fascinating is that he is noticing the same things that somebody like Dan Buettner has noticed in the blue zone cultures that live the longest and are the happiest. In other words, that the people who are most depressed are the least connected to their elders, to their extended family, to their friends, because we live in this fractured culture. They lack purpose in their lives, something that the Okinawans call ikigai, that driving force that gets us up out of bed in the morning. There's a lack of faith-based communities, this idea that there's

something beyond the self that is important, that can be a guiding light in our lives. All of these things, we don't move our bodies. You were talking about the cycling and the swimming, like we're divorced from movement. All of these habitual behaviors that defined the human race for millennia are things that we feel like we've graduated from. And I am firmly of the opinion that that is actually contributing to not only our mental lack of wellbeing, but our physical lack of wellbeing as well. And, and of course, undermining our happiness. Beautiful. What I would like to say in, in, in communicating with your audience here, the audience here is that if you can have this sensation of a label, uh, bipolar, manic, manic, depressed, borderline, all of these dyslexic, attention deficit. If you can realize that these labels, and I'm using a word that you use a lot, that these labels don't define you.

They describe you. That they are describing some behavior that people have a need to categorize. And so they've given a label to you. And if you allow that label to just be like a loose-fitting jacket that you may not wear all day, that you're going to shed at some time, continue to take the medication that is being prescribed to you, but alternatively get involved in a program at a very small level, at a very reasonable rate,

bicycling, walking, running, swimming, yoga, meditation, getting in touch with somebody who knows how to do it and can show you how to do it better one of the things that you will find over time and i've found this to be true with literally through my life tens of thousands of people that either wanted to give up this or not be that or achieve this or whatever just like you have and that is that they realize later in a few months all of a sudden they find that the medication is not is is not making them feel the way they want to feel, so they take less of it. And then all of a sudden, they feel like, okay, less of it was good. And then a few months later, they're still doing whatever else they're doing

in their exercise, meditation, reading, communicating, I need less. And eventually the medication will give you up because in very few parts of our life does the medical prescription become a lifetime sentence. You know, you have a cold, you take the medicine from the cold, you're over the cold, you stop taking the medicine. You have a broken bone, you get a cast on your bone, your bone heals, you take the cast off. There are a few things that you are to take medicines for the rest of your life. But even those, we have to question. Because if we change our lifestyle, if we change our outlook, all of a sudden we'll start noticing, hey, you know, in this moment, as I said before, I look down at my dog and the dog's just frisky and happy as ever. In a moment that seems to be going badly on earth, I realize, okay, even within this moment,

there is some joy that I can find. I wanted to use your blackboard. And if the camera can catch this, think of this as the waves on the ocean. For those listening and not on YouTube, he's drawing on a blackboard right now. So for those who are just listening, go on YouTube. You can erase that and draw a diagram. Go on YouTube. Your PowerPoint. Yeah.

So the thing that causes the wave out in the ocean to be this wave that is breaking up at the beach is the fact that the water has become shallow. And out here the water is deep and in here the water is shallow. And if we can take away the idea that shallow is a derogatory statement and just say, maybe it's just a geometry, maybe it's just a way of working with the moment. When we're shallow, our moments break up. And if they're constantly breaking up, we're going to be depressed because we can't get a sense of everything. Confusion, depression, sadness, grief, all of these things just start whirling around and we don't feel that fulfillment. So what you need to do is you need to go deep. You got to swim out to the deep water. You got to swim out to the deep water.

You got to put yourself through a pace that you do consistently, that I do consistently, each in our own ways. That is causing us to go deeper. So for people that are listening, you drew this diagram up there of waves with the sort of bottom of the sea getting gradually and gradually less deep. So in the shallow waters where the waves are breaking, there's a lot of tumult. There's a lot of disruption. And if you're living in that tumult, and that's what depression is. Depression is sometimes a protection

from living in that tumult and that constant irregularity and confusion. And you just go kind of like into the numb state and you're depressed and you can hold on to it for a long period of time as a protective mechanism but if you did something like you went for a good run and you started breathing and got your blood mowing went for a good bike ride went for a went for a good swim went for a deep yoga, went for a deep yoga stretch, went into anything that's physical. Because I wouldn't think that in this state,

you're going to be jumping into meditation and being able to gain a lot from it. But anything that you can go into that's physical, do Pilates, do a spin, do aerobics, do whatever. And you will find that eventually, you're facing the same situation, but it's not appearing the same. And appearances are very deceiving. What do you mean doesn't appear the same? Every moment has, well, let me go back into scripture. Every moment has a cycle.

has a cycle. And in the moment, in this cycle, you can experience anything from the devotional attitudes to the commotional attitudes, to the deeper depression attitudes, to the determination attitudes, right? The determination attitudes are those things like, you know, determination, struggle, hard work, effort. The dark emotionals are the fears, the rages, the angers, the depressions, the sadnesses. The commotions are the chaos, the tumult, the confusion, and all of those. And the devotions are the love, joy, those things that are so present around family and friends

that are really dear to you. Every moment has that cycle spinning. Because you can have the same moment with a great friend, that if you're all by yourself, it's a completely different perspective. It's a completely different observation. And so in each moment, as the mystics and the yogis from the distant past would say that in each moment, it is dependent upon how deep you're experiencing it as to what you're going to be able to get out of it. So if we juxtapose that back to what we were talking

and what we've been talking about throughout if in the moment of depression where things just don't seem to be holding together still taking your medication still understanding that we're not belittling the idea this is a reality i i am of the opinion if in today's world you're not depressed at times, you're not paying attention. And so I honor the depressed. And I say, if you can do something that causes you to go deeper, that same moment that is very depressing will have a different story. It'll have a different message.

And those are the ones that the Buddha talked about. Those are the ones that Lao Tse talked about. Those are the ones that all, talked about, those are the ones that Lao Tse talked about, those are the ones that all, you know, Muhammad and Jesus talked about that are so clearly message moments. And I believe that people that are very depressed in today's world are people that have more connection to the solutions than the people that are frivolous and giddy and bouncing on the surface. Right. Well, certainly there's an

argument that they're more sensitive because like you said, if you're paying attention and you're not experiencing depression periodically, then you need to pay attention more. There's plenty to be depressed about. There you go. And somebody who is naturally a little more sensitive or even more empathetic than the average human being is probably more prone to a depressive state than somebody who immunizes themselves from that and just bounces along thinking everything's hunky-dory all the time.

So I grant you that. And it goes back to what you were saying is how humans have trained themselves over the years to feel shame under certain depths, the depth of depression. You feel shame because you're this. The idea, what has cured more addicts than anything else is the removal of the shame factor. than anything else is the removal of the shame factor. Well, shame, yeah, shame is definitely something that keeps addicts stuck in a destructive cycle, for sure.

And keeps depression to be stuck, keeps sadness to be stuck, keeps grief to be stuck. Yeah. stuck. Well, the people that are honky dory though, too, I never trust those people because I don't think they're really honky dory anyway. They're wearing a mask. That's a Sanskrit word, by the way. And perhaps that's because a honky dory is? It is teasing you. Yeah, it's like, I don't know, maybe it is. Maybe it is. Yeah, they're masking something. And perhaps that's a result of shame because it's so shameful to express

your true emotional state that it's easier to wear a mask and just tell everybody that everything is great. Ooh, let's dive into that moment, what you just said. Julie calls them the super dupers because every time you see them and you ask them how they're doing, they give you a firm handshake with a big smile

and tell you that they're doing super duper. Super duper. You just said the people that are, you know, writing on the surface all the time and it's like it's always daylight, you know, it's always high noon. Our physical environments are creating that now because every time we look at a screen,

whether it's a screen on a computer, a screen on our phone, or a screen on an iPad, we're looking at high noon. We're looking at the light of high noon, this heavy blue light that's coming off the screen. And what it's giving us is this sensation that you've got to always be up.

You got to always be on top of it. Super duper. What did you say? Super duper. Hunky dory. Yeah. Which one's better? I think super duper is probably better than hunky.

Hunky dory is like pretty good. Super duper, that implies. Well, I think hunky dory is the 50s and super duper is the 21st century. And you can't always be up. How you doing? I'm doing. Every once in a while, take off the mask and just say,

don't feel sorry for me, but I'm feeling horrible. and just say, don't feel sorry for me, but I'm feeling horrible. You know, one of the things that we have to watch out for is when we develop an acute pattern, a consistent pattern of not feeling well, we are actually, if we're around people, probably being fed by some sympathy. And sympathy is a bit like a candy bar because it can give you a boost of energy in the moment, but it's not sustaining energy.

Well, it can create a victim narrative that people start to become dependent upon. A victim narrative that people start to become dependent upon. And so you should check your sympathy factor. If you're in fairly consistent sadness, depression, grief, etc., you should check to see if you've gotten so accustomed to sympathy that you're rejecting it, but knowing that it's always there to be accepted also. These are things that need to be viewed within the individual life. But the fact is, is that diving into that depression, diving into that sadness, and taking off the mask and admitting it and saying, you know, I'm not looking for anything from you,

but I just got to say what's happening in the world today or what's happening in my world today or what just happened in my home or whatever. I'm not feeling good. Or you could even say if it's chronic, you know what? I haven't felt good for 10 years. And then all of a sudden, let's go.

The cocktail party goes silent. But you know, to heck with the cocktail party. Let's be honest. This is the thing. I mean, I think it's terrifying for people. If I admit that I'm not feeling good, what are people going to think of me? And I think that goes right back into this discussion around shame and around vulnerability. We're taught to comport ourself in a certain way, to navigate social circles in a manner that will allow us to maintain that trajectory of upward mobility. And to act in contravention of that is to put at risk everything that you've staked your life upon, which provokes fear. And that sense of shame is the ultimate prophylactic against behaving in a way that actually would contribute to greater health. I have a couple like little mantras

around this. The first is shame can't survive the light. I didn't make that. I didn't come up with that myself. I'm sure somebody else said that, but I love that because it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, you know, if we're, if we're ashamed about something, the most terrifying thing would be to shed light on it, to expose that in a vulnerable way to another human being. shed light on it, to expose that in a vulnerable way to another human being. The stakes can be very high for people, but ultimately placing that into a social setting in which it can be discussed in a mature way is the path to healing. But it requires us to be vulnerable and we're not raised to be vulnerable. That contravenes what we've been led to believe

makes us a man, makes us masculine. But I think that vulnerability, that willingness to be vulnerable is the ultimate courage. And when you can expose that which you're ashamed of from a place of wanting to heal it, asking for help, allowing yourself to be vulnerable requires a tremendous amount of courage. But it's very difficult for most people, for myself, for anybody. Courage is a word that's made up of two words, core and aj. And core means heart. It's a Latin word meaning heart. And aj means time. And courage means a time of the heart. And so getting people to be willing,

willingness is also a mechanism of the heart. Getting people to be willing, willingness is also a mechanism of the heart. Getting people to be willing and courageous is something, and I always look at it the same way as that drawing, and that is that our trajectory can't be, let's fix it right now. Our trajectory has to be something more like, let's fix it this year. Let's give ourselves 12 months. Let's give ourselves 18 months. Let's give ourselves enough time so that we're not looking for immediate gratification. And if we get setbacks, we don't notice them as much as if the setback means that we didn't succeed in this day.

And so I look at these things like overcoming depression, and when it comes on you, go dive into it and live in it until it's completed its storytelling, and then you come out of it. These are the kinds of things that we can work with. I would say to the audience that's listening or viewing that we've got two people here talking with each other and we're sharing ideas of things that we have learned throughout our years of life and things that we have studied throughout our efforts.

But every single moment is a teacher. And vulnerability, the word that you used a moment ago, is something that men aren't taught to be. And one of the things that is taking place in the masculine world is this real dominance of the bravado and the subordination of vulnerability. And so men that are listening to this podcast, as well as women, have to find groups that are safe arenas in which they can expose the things that are true. 12-step programs are famous for that. Men's groups, women's groups are famous for that. Find, reach out there and find some way. I just came back from, we have a men's camp in Canada every August, and I just came back from teaching at that.

We lived together for a week at a Boy Scout camp. And we all eat together. It's vegan. It's very high energy. But people come into that with a lot of baggage that they don't leave with. a lot of baggage that they don't leave with because in those circles that are completely safe which you can find you know throughout the world you can find those kinds of circles that you can relate you can take off your mask you can become vulnerable in that moment you can start practicing you don't necessarily have to take it out on the big stage of your life and

suddenly be vulnerable in the midst of everybody that you've been completely shielded from for a long time but coming out in vulnerability in safe settings learning what are the muscles what is what's the coordination that it takes to be vulnerable in a moment and then you can also practice it when you're on your own or with when close, intimate relationships of yours and start being more vulnerable. Start allowing people in when you're feeling sadness, when you're feeling grief, when you're feeling depression, so that you can have assistance in the exploration. That's how you heal. That's how you overcome all of the baggage that we carry around.

I mean, in addition to not being taught the value of vulnerability, as men, we're also taught to be self-sufficient. In other words, asking for help is a weakness. That's a vulnerability that's unacceptable. when I was struggling with alcohol and just could not stop drinking, I was adamant that I, on my own, would be able to find a solution to this problem. And I absolutely refused to ask for help because I believe that I could handle it and that the manly way forward was just to handle your shit, man. Sort it out. You don't need to dump it on somebody else and make it their problem. That's weakness. Strength is cleaning house on your own. And as long as I proceeded with that mentality, that hole that I was digging just got deeper and deeper and deeper until the pain was

so great that everybody who was saying, will you please ask for help? Will you please ask for help? I finally had no other choice but to do just that. And I can tell you that was incredibly painful because it cut across everything that I thought made me who I was, which was this self-sufficient person. I had imagined that every success that I had had in my life was a result of my ability to buckle down and work hard and get it done. And I could not understand why that mentality couldn't solve this problem.

But ultimately, I sit here across from you today because I like to say it was because of courage, but it wasn't. It was because I was so broken and I had no other avenue of recourse. But it was that act of asking for help, of surrender, of raising my hands and saying, I can't do this anymore. I don't know how to solve this problem. Can you please help me? It's a vulnerable act and it took a lot of courage to do that. And it was terrifying. took a lot of courage to do that and it was terrifying and I felt very ashamed. All of the emotions that we're discussing here today, but that was the first step in addressing this problem that ultimately was going to kill me. And in that experience, I was able to find a way to get sober, to stay sober. And that's why I feel so strongly about this, that we need to reimagine what it means to be a man, what it means to be

strong, and really embrace the fact that vulnerability is courage, that asking for help is not a weakness. And I say that because millions and millions of not just men, but people are suffering tremendously all over the world. And they're stuck in situations that could be redressed. People who are harboring conditions that could be healed, but they're not availing themselves of the solution because they're afraid to ask for help because that feels like weakness. And another thing that comes out of that distortion of not being able to have a balanced world, not being able to be vulnerable,

not being able to look weak because you're asking for help, is a strong contributor to the dilemma that we have today in the world, which is that men are predators. They're sexual predators. They're power predators. They take advantage of other people, whether they're sexually oriented or territorially oriented. The world is a predatory place.

And this is not going to bring about inner peace or world peace or any kind of peace. It's not going to bring about anything. I loved hearing what you were saying is that, you know, it came out of being broken. But what came out of being broken was that there was no alternative but to be courageous, but to be vulnerable. And if we could get the listeners and the viewers to understand, as we're talking about sadness and grief and depression, that, you know, these too are addictive behaviors.

These too are familiarities. A lot of the things that we're dealing with in this cycle of behavior is that we move towards the familiar. So that if you have been chronically depressed, if you have been chronically sad or grieving, it's a familiarity. And just like you were saying, you felt that if what was familiar to you,

and I loved what you were saying, what was familiar to you was that I have to be strong and I have to do this by myself. Otherwise, my whole image shatters and I can't live in a shattered image. These people that are listening and viewing this show have to understand that it's okay to let the image shatter, but to do it in a safe location. Don't just do know out there in the public view because the public isn't ready to view it the public isn't ready to respond to it and it may only compound your shame it may only compound

your sense of inadequacy so we would be we would be fortunate to recommend that just like what you've been through and I really respect your journey, that the people that are listening that may be in a chronic state of depression, that these are not unlike alcoholism. They're not unlike drug addiction. It's a habit. It's a pattern. It has an emotional component, it has a mental component, it has a physical component. People get very accustomed to being who they are. And if it's only medicine that is going to help them,

one has to understand that medicine's main effort is to, and it's a compassionate effort. I'm not ridiculing it in any way. Its main effort is to remove the symptom because the symptom is so painful. But if the core problem is your identity, you have a larger mountain to climb. We become so habituated to our sense of who we are, to our identities.

And if you are suffering, whether it's alcoholism or from some other kind of mental or emotional disease, and I say that like dis-ease, a sense of a lack of ease in your life, I say that like dis-ease, a sense of a lack of ease in your life, then I would challenge you to call into question that sense of self that you're clinging to so strongly. Beautiful. How's that working out for you? And the fear that you have around letting go of that actually is the key that can unlock the door to rebuilding a new identity that will serve you in a much healthier way. And I respect the fact that that's terrifying because I know what that's like to be in that place. But to understand that consciousness is larger than this narrative that you've sewn around who you are and that we all have the ability to grow and transcend whatever whatever is currently holding us back

that is complete i think we did our our first hour of guru corner man how do you feel i feel great is it good it's great all right man let's take a break and come back for round two. All right. All right, my friend. That was such a great summary of the whole thing. Now I want you to read this painting. Just say peace and plants. Yes, peace and plants.

What a delight that human being is. I really think he's a national, if not an international treasure. And I truly believe there's great value in having him drop in on the podcast from time to time to share his great wisdom, his pearls, so to speak. I always feel better after speaking with him. And I hope you guys got something positive out of that. If you want to learn more about Guru Singh, you can find him online at gurusingh.com. He's also on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at Guru Singh Yogi. And if you're not in Los Angeles and cannot drop in on one of

his classes at Yoga West, which you should do if you are in town, but if you can't, he actually live streams all of his classes, his Kundalini yoga classes on Facebook. So check that out. If you're looking for a little nutritional guidance, you're trying to dial up your plate, you're not sure where to begin, but you're plant curious, I cannot stress enough how much benefit you can get from our Plant Power Meal Planner. Go to meals.richroll.com and there you will find thousands of plant-based recipes, all completely customized

based on your personal preferences. We also have unlimited grocery lists that are auto-generated from the recipes. We have grocery delivery integrated into the product in most metropolitan cities. We have incredible customer support on the ready seven days a week. People who really know what they're talking about.

People with graduate degrees in nutrition who will answer any question you have, no matter how rudimentary. And really proud of this product. Perhaps what I'm most proud of is that it's so robust and so helpful. And it's just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year, which is amazing. a week when you sign up for a year, which is amazing. So again, go to meals.richroll.com or click on meal planner on the top menu at richroll.com to learn more and to sign up. If you would like to support our work here on the podcast, the best thing to do is to share the show or your favorite episode with your friends or on social media. Hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts or on whatever platform you enjoy this content. Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

This episode is up on YouTube at youtube.com forward slash richroll. All of that is a great way to support the mission here, and I really appreciate it. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for doing all the video and video editing and generating all the graphics my man dk for sponsor relationships and theme music as always

by analema appreciate the love you guys i'll see you back here in a couple days with an incredible conversation i'm super excited about with running guru nox robinson he's the founder of the black Roses NYC Running Collective. He's an amazing guy with an incredible story and a conversation that's really all about running culture. Until then, peace, plants, namaste, sat naam. Thank you.