The Rich Roll Podcast - Let’s Talk About Balance

Episode Date: September 22, 2017

An open panel discussion on non-traditional healing modalities and how we conceptualize balance in the construct of our lives, this episode is lifted from a session that Julie Piatt and I conducted during our Plantpower Ireland retreat this past July. It features our long-time friend Colin Hudon, a physician of Traditional Chinese Medicine who is also the founder of Living Tea, which imports the finest living teas sourced from ancient tea trees across both China and Taiwan. Topics discussed include: * Colin & Julie's personal struggles and experiences with self-healing; * Broadening our concept of healing beyond traditional Western modalities; * The idea of “healing by subtraction”; and * A lengthy discussion about how we conceptualize and apply the idea of “balance” in our lives. Plus, we take some great questions and comments from our Plantpower tribe! This one veers towards the more esoteric, so please approach with an open mind. You might be surprised by the self-reflection it stimulates. I sincerely hope you enjoy the exchange. Peace + Plants, Rich

As beings that are waking up, we need to start to value that which is unseen with an equal focus to that which is seen. So the whole world's out of balance because there's so much importance put on the logical, the scientific, that's masculine. But there's an entire half of the universe, which is completely illogical, unreasonable, feminine, magical, that's not being valued the same way. And that's not balance. And that's why the world is so out of balance right now. That's Julie Pyatt, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey everybody, my name is Rich Roll. I am your host. I am your conduit. This is my podcast. Thanks for stopping by. Today's episode is recorded from one of the sessions that Julie and I conducted during our retreat in Ireland this past July. It focuses on the subject of balance, and we also explore a variety of less conventional healing modalities, things like acupuncture. And we're joined briefly by Colin Hudon, a longtime friend and physician of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, who is also the founder of Living Tea, which imports the finest living teas from China and Taiwan. And he's there to help us explore a few of these less conventional healing modalities. If you recall my podcast with Tea Master Wuda, then you'll likely recall Colin's name coming up, being mentioned because they are collaborators and friends. And actually, it's through Colin

that we were able to even meet Wuda in the first place. But before we dig in. We're brought to you 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. 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. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has

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Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, balance. What are we talking about in this episode? Well, we talk about a lot of stuff. Colin talks about his healing experience with Julie. We talk about traditional conventional ideas around healing and medicine versus the more

esoteric forms like herbs and acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, something Colin calls healing by subtraction or healing by clearing. We talk about balance. What is it? What does it mean? The difference between balance and extremes. We take questions and comments from the Plant Power Ireland tribe. And it's awesome. It's a little esoteric at times, but it's good. So let's drop in on Manor Valley of Elaine in County Cork and get woke.

Okay, awesome. Here we are everybody good did you guys like the lunch it's good right ballet the lane is is the lawn oh please are you correcting me now and like Irish dialect after two weeks I think it's... Ballet Valant. This is ballet for short. God. Okay. Ballet Valant. Seriously? Anyway, they're doing an amazing job. Incredible job, I think.

So that's really great. So good for us. So Rich, what are we going to talk about? It's your show, Julie. Today on TAP, we have have balance that's going to be the subject yeah kind of not I went upstairs to have a little powwow with you about what we're

going to talk about and Julie says just follow my lead so then I come here and she does a little that's why she's like I'm striking back for the ballet the lawn correction okay okay all right so let's just scratch that and we'll begin at the beginning again okay so um in yoga we were talking about balance but we were also talking about imbalance so in order to be balanced we have to deal with our imbalances and I've been talking to many of you and many of you been sharing your experience around life around situations

where you know we find ourselves living what we think is a healthy existence like you know I'm eating really healthy. I'm practicing yoga. I'm taking care of myself. And why am I still plagued by certain traumas and illnesses and physical issues and emotional issues that are still living with us? And I think anybody who's been alive in a human body would agree that we have these moments where we're just like, we're like in the same situation with the same circumstances and we're kind of beating our head

against the wall saying like are are you serious like am I here again you know what about all the progress I made what about all the work I did and so the way that I like to view that in life is just you know as we know energy moves in spiral patterns and so we have to view that in life is just, as we know, energy moves in spiral patterns. And so we have to understand that we're in this process of movement, and even if you're revisiting a certain point on the spiral or the labyrinth, you'd say that we have evolved, but we're getting an opportunity to revisit those patterns so that we can clear and heal to deeper and deeper levels.

And so Colin has been treating us with these amazing Chinese medicine treatments, and he's truly gifted, and Rich and I feel so blessed to have him with us. He's truly a treasure of information and a beautiful heart and experience. And so he's going to go run in a minute to support himself so he can continue to do sessions. But I wanted Colin to come up and to share about his experience. We both consider ourselves, I guess, seekers and we both are healers to a certain extent in different modalities. And even though, like many of you, we both have had physical issues that continue to plague us. And so I want to call in to share his experience around his,

and then I'll share some of my experience around mine. So anyway, thanks. Thank you. I just like making stuff up, so I'm just going to totally make everything up. Well, so what you just said and what I thought I was going to talk about are two different things. You can just talk about what you want to talk about. Well, initially you were going to talk a bit about clearing. Yeah. Is that what you want me talk about well initially you're going to talk a bit about clearing yeah um is that what you want me to go with yeah go with that but i guess what i'm what i'm saying is that i think your experience that you and i had together a few days ago is very powerful foundational

experience that can help the mind to find a leg to grab onto that That's why I wanted you to share that. Yeah, okay, sure. So, one thing I would say prior to just talking for a moment about some of this healing work we're talking about is that we've been entrained and inculcated and conditioned to see reality in a very particular way that we complicitly agree to. And it's based in thousands of years of history and education and paradigms of thought and belief that inform the way we're thinking about everything that we didn't necessarily sign up for. thinking about everything that we didn't necessarily sign up for. And, you know, even questioning some of those beliefs, like choosing not to eat animal products or something, starts to put chinks or cracks in some of those ideologies, and I think can start to open up the possibility of

questioning all the traditional assumptions that society kind of bases itself on. And when we look at some different healing modalities, there are different modalities or they might have different paradigms or be based on different approaches to reality than we have been taught to believe in. than we have been taught to believe in. And I would suggest that that's a very good and necessary thing to be healthy in mind, body, spirit, emotions, to really question and be skeptical

and have great inquiry and great faith together. So that being said, you can open the door, you can open the lid of that, what I just said, and go and talk for quite a while about some of those ideas. But specifically around healing, you know, I've had, I've been studying Chinese medicine for quite a long time, and prior to that, different aspects of health and wellness and diet. And mysteriously, about nine years ago, I developed a very intense skin rash that kind of took over my whole upper body and was so itchy that for a number of months I didn't sleep and I would have to sit with socks. I'd have to tie my hands and put socks on my hands and sit at night so I wouldn't scratch my body. And it was a very, very intense and extremely unpleasant experience. And I had a

chunk of change saved up and I went and saw all these different doctors, Western allopathic dermatologists, rheumatologists, naturopaths, shamans, all these people, and went to Australia to live with this shaman in the outback. And that's a whole other story. What happened there, that was a pretty, it was an interesting experience. And actually, when I came back to LA, Julie and Rich and their family were kind enough to take me in for, I don't know, 10 days or something. And let me try to digest what happened over there in Australia. And through the process of studying Chinese medicine, I was able to heal my body maybe about 95 to 98 percent. And it was in particular an experience with a Chinese doctor up in San Francisco that absolutely

blew my mind how powerful her treatments were with Chinese herbs and she did acupuncture with needles. And I was so kind of moved by that experience. It was one of the things that inspired me to go and study Chinese medicine in school. And fast forward about eight years. about eight years. And recently I started, I moved to a new state, to Colorado,

and I wanted to practice Chinese medicine there. And in order to do that, I had to take some additional national board exams. So I started studying a lot for these tests. And just prior to the most recent test, this rash came out of my arms and hands, which some of you might have noticed some redness in my hands. And it got really itchy and I kind of started to freak out going, wait a minute, I thought I was complete with this hellish process. And over a number of days, it was getting worse and worse and worse the more I studied and um so then the first three days that we were here in Ireland

it was getting really uncomfortable and like maybe every hour or two I was at the point of like really wanting to rip my arms off because they were so itchy it sounds a little extreme but yeah I took it and I passed so that's the the good news but upon passing it the this rash continued to get worse um and so then we kind of get to ireland and i'm kind of like what's going on here why is this happening um and julie and i've talked a lot about um you know transmigration or reincarnation which i think is way more complex than we just jump from one life to the next. Also, if you ever talk to somebody about reincarnation, like you were Cleopatra, you were Augustus Caesar,

you were the pharaoh of some place, right? It's never, you know, you were the prostitute with syphilis who died at age 14 or whatever. So I think it's more complex than that. But oftentimes there are continuities or we have certain curiosities or fascinations in life and we don't really know where they come from. There's no reason to explain that. You know, I've been obsessed with Chinese culture and certain aspects of Chinese medicine and tea and spending as much time in Asia as possible. There was absolutely nothing in my upbringing that would have pointed to that,

among other things. So we did some healing work the other day because kind of all day we're in like the most beautiful places, the cliffs of forgetfulness from the princess bride we found out that's where we actually were. Uh, and in these incredibly beautiful places. And I was having this almost like a histamine response where I was so itchy and uncomfortable all day and it kept getting worse and worse and worse. And then we did a healing session, uh, just before going to bed. But we tried to go find a medical clinic and we tried to get some Western medicine. Yeah. All over. Very, very diligently for a few hours. And that wasn't happening. All the pharmacies had like just closed and then they go, go to this one.

It's open and they just close. And so it wasn't happening. And, uh, we get back to the place and I'm kind of wondering like, when is this going to end? Is it going to end? Why is it getting worse? I'm not stressed out now, etc. Or whatever the trigger, whatever I thought the trigger was, had gone. So then we do this session, and a lot of the theme of the session was, my words for it would be healing by subtraction, but you could also call it healing by clearing. And you can think of clearing in terms of on the mental, emotional, physical level, but you could also think of it on the etheric level or we call the astral level,

causal level, mental level. There's one paradigm of what you call energetic anatomy that would suggest that we have multiple bodies that extend beyond the physical body. And also that we have cords that attach us to different lifetimes and to other people. You might experience this pragmatically, like you think of your mother or you think of a friend and then the phone rings a minute later. Probably you've experienced something like that. Or you get a sense that something's off and then the phone rings a minute later. Probably you've experienced something like that. Or you get a sense that something's off and then you talk to somebody and you realize that you were thinking about them at that time. I mean, this is starting to sound like Star Wars and the Force or something.

But I think you probably know what I'm talking about. So we did this session. And a lot of it was around clearing. And I guess Julie can say more about that if she wants to. and a lot of it was around clearing. I guess Julie can say more about that if she wants to, but the one salient part that I'll mention now is that halfway through the session, I felt myself relax, and I felt my sympathetic nervous system kind of calm down,

and my breathing deepened, and then I felt myself kind of drop into my body and went from basically for the past month, and my breathing deepened and then I felt myself kind of drop into my body and Went from basically for the past month every day every couple hours being very itchy on my arms and my neck to any itch stopping completely stopped and since that session I have not even had a twinge of oh, I think and My skin's been healing every almost hourly. So I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of this week it's completely back to normal. And that's not due to taking an antihistamine or taking any Chinese herbs or doing acupuncture. It might be from being around such healing, wonderful people for the whole week.

But I would suggest that there are aspects of healing that are non-linear and that are, dare I say, multidimensional and that are beyond the realm of the five senses. Through our five senses, we're only experiencing a very limited range of reality. In terms of, we only see between a tiny range between ultraviolet and whatever's on the other end. In our hearing, if somebody blows a dog whistle, we don't hear it at all, but all the dogs in the neighborhood go crazy, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I just thought it was really powerful for us to hear that demonstration just because that was a healing. It was my healing.

Colin was lying on the bed and I was doing what I do. What I would call that is that it was really a prayer of love for him and of recognition for him and of seeing him in a perfect state. And also some mechanics, kind of like brushing your teeth, just things that I've learned from doing so much healing work. You know, you were mentioning regression. I did a regression session a week for two years. I've worked with a lot of amazing healers,

and I've learned along the way. So I've learned what to ask for. I've learned what to, you know, if I get shown a vision, I've learned what that is. But really the overall intention was just pure love. That's all it was. And it was knowing that nothing is wrong with him. And as long as I've seen him over nine years

try to unlock this puzzle, I've known that he would never solve it intellectually and I've known that it was part of his evolution, his ascension process. And I think there was also an aspect that we were meant to interact with each other. And so what we initially did was, this is really severe, he was really uncomfortable, uncomfortable enough to want to go to an emergency room. And he's a physician himself. And we couldn't find it. We couldn't find a Benadryl anywhere. And we were stopping at multiple pharmacies. We would have just done it because that would have been the logical thing to do. It would have been the easiest thing to do. And then here we were back at the Airbnb and,

you know, and he had asked me actually early in the day, it's not like he wasn't open to working with me, but he had kind of said, Hey, if you're up for it, you know, maybe we could do a session. Well, then when we couldn't find any relief anywhere else, we were kind of forced. And all I did is he went in his room and laid down and I just prayed for him. I mean, but I specifically removed certain things, cleared him from certain situations, cleared some emotional pressure that was being applied to him, disconnected mental programs of what he was thinking his disease was about, opening up into another timeline that we know we have together in some realm, some form,

and clearing any past, we'll just say missteps, and just aligning with a very clear purpose, with all with the intention that the body is divine, that he is divine, and that we were calling back that original perfection of the human form. And all of it just wrapped in a huge blanket of love just huge like as much as i could muster it was just like use you know this channel through this heart you know with all the love that i have just give it to this being and then i had no idea i didn't know if it was going to work i didn't know if he was going to be like oh shit you know she sucks like it's not very good. That's mostly what I was thinking.

But you just don't know. But I guess that's the thing that I wanted us to open up and to speak about. Because even though Colin's sharing some ideas and some concepts and stuff that we're like, okay, this might be out there. I just know that if I asked most of you, you have some experience in your life that you have experienced that there is no, there is no logical explanation of. You're no different. We are all spiritual beings having human experience. And part of this state that we're in as a collective is that, like I said today in yoga,

veganism is not going to cause you to self-actualize. It's not the end point. It's the beginning point. And we have so much emotional trauma around food and our eating issues. And so many of us here have talked about issues that are lineage they're in your ancestry and you're like why is this pattern running me and it's it's not even you it's just part of you so as beings that are waking up we need to start to value that which is unseen with an equal focus to that which is seen so the whole world's out of balance because there's so much importance put on the logical, the logical, the scientific, that's masculine. But there's an entire half of the universe, which is completely illogical, unreasonable, feminine, magical, that's not being valued the same way. And that's not balance. And that's why the world

is so out of balance right now. So being somebody who's feminine oriented, and as usually women or men who have a strongly developed feminine side, a lot more in the younger men generally, but we feel things with our entire being. You know, it's more like the whole body breathing that I've been sharing with you. It's like we're firing on a lot of levels, you know? So I just wanted Colin, as this physician of Chinese medicine who's a male, to share that experience, you know, that happened. And also for you guys to see that just because

we eat well and meditate and, you know, our healers doesn't mean that we're free of these, you know, traumas. I mean, he's, he's dealt with this for many years. It's been going on. And in my case, my case is, you know, I've had head trauma. I have severe headaches that are not migraines, but they're migraine-like. And I've been trying to unlock this key for 20 years. And sometimes it gets better, sometimes it gets worse. And, you know, in the beginning years, I used to put a lot of pressure on myself, be very, very frustrated and very upset that I hadn't been able to figure it out. And then that would create an extra stress, you know, turning on me. And then for survival, I just got to a point where I would

just observe them as an observer and just say the body is having a headache and try not to get involved and just get whatever comfort I could. And then just recently, I had a severe episode in the month of June and I realized that I had a certain lifetime That was linked to this head trauma that I had failed to look at I knew that it existed It had been told to me by six different healers two friends of mine had told me of the experience themselves and All the time I had never taken the time to go back and relive the experience themselves. And all the time I had never taken the time to go back and relive the experience. It was like, I was like, oh yeah, I know that happened, but I had never faced it. So I was like, why is my head feel like it's literally bleeding? Like I have knives stuck in

my skull. And then I got the awareness that my body was talking to me. My body was talking to me and I wasn't listening to my body. So the body is trying to tell me something. It's a key, it's a clue for me to reclaim my power, for me to call back all of my body parts or powers or energies that have been disconnected from me for lifetimes so that I can fully integrate to be who I am. And in order to do that, you have to look at everything that's happened. And it's very complex, and I'm not here to tell you that there's any one way to do it. We did a little bit of Kundalini today for me to show you the breath work and how that moves energy through.

Of course, we have Colin here doing Chinese medicine. He also happens to be a mean tarot card reader, by the way, just on the down low. We have me doing this etheric surgery kind of work, and we're going to do a yoga nidra, like a guided sleep meditation today. But I just wanted to present this as a as a way and a possibility for us to really open up and understand that we have to recognize both sides of what it means to live this spiritual life in a human body Can I just say one quick thing?

You can stay the whole session. I just want to make sure you get your run in. Well, with some of the people I've worked with, you kind of pointed to this idea of an awareness or giving equal primacy to what you could call the numinous, the unseen, the unknown, to other levels of reality potentially. But I would say actually there's a third aspect which I think should take as much if not more

primacy than anything, which is there's nothing in our education system or upbringing that emphasizes our interior lives. And there is, through know, through meditation, there is a practice there, but it doesn't mean an actual study of the interior life. And, you know, like anything, if you're trying to learn something outside, there is a process of studying and learning

that usually, if it's a complex field or discipline, is years of study. And I'd suggest that our interior lives are as complex, if not more complex, and more worthy of that same level of rigor and inquiry and even not scientific approach, not scientific approach, but an approach that is methodical and diligent and focused of investigating and understanding the interior life as much as the exterior world. And there's nothing in our contemporary culture that suggests that that's a worthwhile endeavor. And so there aren't really tools for it that you can find sitting around in culture or in the education system or anything.

And something I just said to somebody who came for a treatment a little while ago is, and this is just a suggestion to show you that you're asleep, which I recognize every day in myself, which is, I call them alarm clocks. And if you take, take for example something that you choose for the day or the week say it's every door I go through today I'm going to use my left hand or I'm gonna brush my teeth with my left hand or I'm going to be aware of my right foot every time I walk up a set of stairs today or you just use something that

you're inserting into your reality as an alarm clock to be present in that moment to your mental, emotional, and physical being, the sensations in your body, to take stock or to take a photograph. Not to learn from it, but just to take the moment of, can I see myself in this moment? Not to learn from it, but just to take the moment of, can I see myself in this moment? I've done that practice for many years, and what I found is that the first thing you see is that many days will pass sometimes, where you've given yourself this task of setting this alarm clock. Many days pass, and you realize you haven't been there for one of those moments. You haven't remembered to do it once. And if you can't remember to do it even once, then you have to ask yourself, well, where was I? What was I doing in that moment? Was I daydreaming?

Was I in the past or the future? I wasn't present, that for certain and the process of doing that is developing just the criteria or the tools with which you can start to excavate and explore your interior reality or even to see it at all and that's something that like I was saying it's a discipline that I think takes many years and without it we're awake and we can navigate reality mechanically and sometimes wakefully well enough. But it doesn't mean that you're navigating reality masterfully. So there's a lot there to explore, but just maybe one thing to try is try to give yourself some simple aim and see if you can maintain it for a day or a couple days and make a practice of it.

Thank you. You want to go run? All right, I'm going to go run now. Okay. Thank you, Colin. That was beautiful. Can I say something? On the theme of mastering your reality,

whether that's through the physical world, the interior world, or the etheric world, the overarching theme of today is balance, right? And how does balance play into those pursuits? And how does balance, how is balance specifically applicable to the choices and the decisions that we make every single day about how we're going to allocate our time and our resources, our energy, right? And i think it's an interesting topic you know culturally we're reared and raised to uh and taught that we should eat a balanced diet and that we should live a balanced life and everything should be you know properly and evenly apportioned across the chess

board of your sort of daily monthly yearly experience and I don't know, I don't know, I'm interested in like exploring that idea and I'm coming to the conclusion that it's just flawed in many ways. First of all, it begs the question of how we're defining the word balance to begin with. Like what does balance mean to you? What does balance mean to me? What does balance mean to each of you individually? And I would submit that that probably varies wildly. And what is the value of balance versus extremes? And as somebody who is prone to and attracted to extremes and somebody who's gone down dark alleyways in extreme pursuits and somebody who's also learned a lot about

myself and how to live by, you know, touching the exterior of the extremes, I think it's a more complicated question. You know, I think there are people out there that would say eating a vegan diet is extreme. That's not balanced. So that's a differential in how we're defining extremes, right? So I'm interested in exploring on a group level with all of you this idea of balance, how you think about balance, where you're challenged by balance, and how perhaps we can move past this idea to a different concept of how to live in a way that is in pursuit of this you know mastery of our existence do you have any thoughts on that before

we go further um yeah i mean i think it's different for every person um and i think that you have to be authentic to the way that you are the way that you express yourself however I would say I would bring back that back down to the longevity and the mindful path is the middle path and so it doesn't I don't know you know I don't know how that ties into extreme paths and I would say also that I think it's our challenge of how are we finding the balance in the moment rather than looking at life as at a series of time, long stretches of time as we know it in this system. I think you have to be balanced in the moment.

You have to be grabbing that awareness to be really connecting on the deepest level. to be really connecting on the deepest level? If you were to reflect back on your life, or if you were to pull a certain group of people, a large population of people, and say, what is your fondest memory? Or what is the most meaningful thing that has happened to you in your life?

You're likely to get answers like, oh, that time that I fell in love, or the time that I climbed Mount Everest, or the time that I did Epic Five, or what have you. These tend to be extreme events, events or experiences where time falls away, and there's a level of focus and intensity that is temporal. It will end at some point, but they are events that are outside the parameters of what one would typically define as being within the construct of a balanced life. So nobody is going to say, oh, it's that time when everything in my life was perfectly apportioned and I was exerting the same amount of energy into every aspect of what's important to me. So how do you reconcile those two things?

And part of how I think about it is not in terms of, you know, scales that are balanced, but more in terms of like a pendulum that's swinging, right? that are balanced but more in terms of like a pendulum that's swinging right and allowing myself to let that pendulum swing you know to one side perhaps maybe a little bit more you know further along than than somebody else on my personal definition as long as you know that it's going to swing back so that everything else can kind of come in check because there's a reaction to every action. Yeah, I get that perspective. I guess I would just say that finding balance to me is being beyond the experience. So it's like if you chase some amazing high, you're going to have some amazing low. It's just the way that it works. So the way to actually cultivate your energy as a master is to find that middle point. It's almost like you're in the zone and this is going here and this is going there and

this is going here and this is going there. So I agree with you. If you polled 99% of the population, that is the answer. They would be looking for that epic experience that they could remember in their life, which is a memory of the past. Or maybe it would be a projection into the future. But I guess what I'm saying is to tap into the force that holds all of it is to be in the middle, is to be in neutral. And that is balance. That is true balance.

I mean, what you're saying is the extreme experience might be the one that the emotional body cherishes the most, right? But I don't know that that is balance. So then would that be something to be avoided? You know what I mean? If your heart is compelling you to pursue something outside of what might be socially approved of, but that is what is speaking to you, are you not to then pull that thread and follow that? Even if it... Yeah, no, nothing...

I'm not saying I have the answer. Like I'm challenging you because I'm interested in how this plays out and how you think about No, nothing should be avoided and and your desire should not be avoided and nothing should be suppressed I mean in an absolute in an absolute answer You should pursue everything to the end of it so that it's exhausted within you so that it's no longer pulling at you But I just have a I'm mean, the subject of balance... I guess I'm not in a framework where I think that balance means

that if you're pursuing extremes, that that's balance. I mean, balance is the equanimity in which all these experiences are happening. So, like I said, you know, for instance, I had a moment in my path where I, um, I made a move and I quit a job that I should have kept, but I had received a message that I needed to stop working immediately. That's like really bad. Um, and my thing to, to my client was that I was no longer allowed to work for money and that I literally it was doing interior

design and if I had four months to live, this is what I said to him, if I have four months to live I wouldn't say oh golly I can't wait to redesign your house like that's just what I have to do. So I said I really have to be an artist and so he said okay, well, why can't I buy your art? And I said well, that's a that's a conflict of interest because I'm your interior designer, and I why can't I buy your art? And I said, well, that's a conflict of interest because I'm your interior designer and I'm telling you to buy my art. Well, I left that meeting and he bought a lot of my art and I made a lot of money that day.

And he asked me later, he said, how come you weren't more happy? How come I didn't see you like jumping up and down and screaming and, you know? And it was because I had reached this place of neutrality within me and I said to him I don't want to experience the deep lows after the deep high so what I'm endeavoring to do is find that neutral and just be in my power that is like the neutral power of what I would call balance so it's not that I'm grateful. It's that I'm not going on the pendulum.

I don't want to ride on the pendulum because the pendulum's always going to swing. There's always going to be a repercussion to that. And you can't live your life always in the highs. You know, so I just, for me, I'm seeking that balance as that middle path. And I think that that is the longevity. That is, if we can stay in that neutral,

we can be very effective over a very long period of time. I guess that's what I would say. Do you want to take the mic so we can have a recording? Oh, here, I'm next. Now, I've thought about this from a work-life perspective, obviously, for a while. But I think, Rich, you've asked the question on some of your podcasts as well, just challenging what this concept of balance is. some of your podcasts as well, just challenging what this concept of balance is. And at least for me, I think there can be a fallacy in maybe the word balance thinking, like you said, equal distribution across the scale or some perfectly proportioned amounts of everything. And I don't

see that necessarily as balance. I see that more as equanimity or, you know, an equal distribution of everything. But balance for me is, I mean, you can see incredible art sculptures that are asymmetrical, but still within balance. So you have things out on the extreme, but maybe the weight of those is not as much as, you know, going down the center mass. of those is not as much as, you know, going down the center mass. So, um, I do think you can, you can approach, uh, and, and go extremes, but other things will have to accommodate for that in some way. Um, and you know, so it's hard to think of like, I'm going to sleep eight hours, I'm going to work eight hours, I'm going to, uh, and be in a relationship eight hours, you know, that may not be the reality, but I do agree that over the longterm things do balance out. And so if, yeah, if you are out here

on the extreme, then you're not going to balance at some point, or you're going to have to correct that to come back into balance. And as you were just speaking, I was thinking of like, um, wavelengths. I mean, you can have very fluid, steady wavelengths, or you can have some that do oscillate over high peaks and troughs. But I think the word balance in and of itself gives us a perception of equanimity more than some sort of distribution around neutral that may not be symmetrical. For some, it may be symmetrical, but for others, it may be something different. Yeah, I like that sentiment. I think that's spot on in two respects. The first being that perhaps this question of how do I live a balanced life is the wrong question,

or at least using the wrong vernacular to frame the inquiry. And I really like that analogy of the sculpture, the idea of you can still be in balance and be asymmetrical. You know, there's something cool about that. I hadn't thought of it in that way. Thanks. I think it's interesting when we talk about extremes, and I've always enjoyed extremes. And I think when you look at what you do in an extreme event, whether it's sport or business or whatever else,

if that extreme is to take you away from a reality that you don't actually want to be in, then it's completely out of balance. And I think what we have to try and do is find harmony in mediocrity first because when you then just become one with just the flow of how your life is, then you can still step out and do an extreme thing, but it doesn't have the major negative impact. It's to try and find that peace within yourself that is just,

you know, what is Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday like? Because if I accept how I am and how I am going to be in those days and in those moments, then I found that, you know, peace that I'm okay with mediocrity. My life is my life and I'm here to live it. I can then step out and do other stuff. But I think it's so important that we find that inner peace first because a lot of the times the extremes are being pursued to escape rather than to be pursued as something beneficial to you spiritually. Yeah, it's like I used to talk to Rich a lot and to some of the athletes that I would meet

about getting to the point where you were training or doing whatever that activity was for the love of it. Just for the love, for the pure love. We had friends with different names of organizations like Never Stop. And I used to joke and I was like please stop, please sit down but you know yeah it's like what are you running from and what are you running to and I think it's the same same thing with the money conversation that we had today it's not the it's not the

extreme sport that's the out of balance it's the reason for doing it and if you're doing it for the love of it or doing it because it's your love, your child love, you know, like it is in your case, then it's aligned to who you are. And we can use money, you know, as an energy the same way. But if you're, you know, if it's, if your quest is the money, then you're looking in the wrong place. So what I've talked to some athletes about that I've met through Rich is really getting to the love of it. And sometimes when I, I don't know,

I guess that's kind of like an interesting subject because sometimes Rich will come back from training and I'll be like, hey babe, did you have fun? And he's like, fun? He's like, all I'm in is in pain like the whole time.

I'm like, really? I thought you were having a blast doing that so yeah I think it you know it's a question I think well it's just fun's the wrong word you know like pain painfully yeah but there's there's other there's other rewards in that but you know I I have taken to heart that idea of like doing it for the love and I think that's important and I think really kind of what I'm hearing here or the wisdom behind all of this is not the uh the behavior or the extreme thing or whatever it is it's your relationship to that thing right it's like is your relationship to that thing uh in check is it healthy are you trying to escape some reality or run away from something? Or are you using it as a like a fulcrum point to learn something or to

explore something in yourself? And is your emotional connection to that, you know, in a healthy place of neutrality? Or are you like out of whack with the meaning or importance that you're attaching to any of these pursuits right yeah like if you have an adrenaline thing that's just pushing you like I got to go do the next thing I got to do the next thing and I have to do it and I have to conquer it it's like what are you doing you know that's who I am right so how do you parse like that's who I am and that's what I love versus the unhealthy like within that baked

into that you can almost hear the, like I'm running away from my life because I'm scared of something. Yeah, and yet in an absolute term, it's exactly, I mean, it's exactly perfect because that's what that being has to go to, to get exhausted, to then return back to himself or herself. So everyone should pursue all their desires and, you know, I mean, the yogi way would say to go deeply into them, even if they're negative, go deeply into them.

Don't suppress anything. Fully experience everything so it's gone. And that's not in alignment with AA practices at all. I was going to say, if you tell an alcoholic that, that's not going to end very well. We've always, like, argued over this. I'm like, yes, honey, do it. No. But that would be what a yogi would say.

Because there's no, you don't want to suppress anything. You don't want to, that's why I said today to understand that we have both light and dark because when we start to be in denial and we start to push some of those down, then the demons come up. You know, I mean, look at the Catholic church, look at, you know, it's like, you don't want to suppress that stuff. It is part of our humanity. And then, you know, we have to deal with some of it. And we have to clear things, you know, that we've been given to clear from ancestral lines and stuff like that. Yeah, thank you. Sorry. David Clark.

Yeah, I'm going to be able to find that very topic. Right. Sorry. No, I was just saying that Rich had a podcast with a guy named david clark and they discussed this topic at length where he was a an ultra runner and he just kept i mean i don't know he was like doing all they're just setting one crazy record after another running 10 marathons back to back or double leadvilles or whatever and he eventually you know started questioning himself why am i doing this maybe somebody posed the question to he eventually, you know, started questioning himself. Why am I doing

this? And maybe somebody posed the question to him initially, but you know, he did this. And in the middle of one of his endurance runs, just completely broke down and, you know, had the epiphany that I don't need this anymore. I'm complete as I am. And I, and he seems like he was kind of chasing validation through these endurance sports. Yeah. By his own admission, he was, you know, seeking something outside of himself through those pursuits and it just kept getting more and more crazy. And then he had that, like, he literally had a breakdown in the middle of a, of an ultra run, but that, that would be an example of him pursuing that Yogi, but like he did it all the way to the wall. Yeah. And that was his sacred moment. He had a sacred moment. I guess you could

say in the context of an alcoholic too, that like they need to just drink until they reach that point where they can't they're not they're they within themselves know like okay i have to stop right or hit bottom somebody doing an intervention and getting somebody into rehab it doesn't really want to go to rehab yet because they're not ready yet because they're not done yeah exactly so really really be done really go through it and really be done and that's kind of scary because some people's choices might lead them to, you know, exit the body or do whatever. Um, but, um, yeah, I mean, an Indian master that I used to meditate with used to say like, you know, people are so afraid of a depression. They're like, Oh, he's depressed. Take a pill. He's like, you know, maybe if he has a really good depression,

I'll wake up, you know, so we'll be in bed a few days And after that it would like crack his head open and he'll be like, oh, but you know again, it's all in moderation I'm not I'm not advocating that for everybody, but I'm just saying Yeah exhaust your desires and and When you have that sacred moment, you can find the real reason. I think there can be moments of balance in those extreme actions.

Like, it may not be balanced from an energy exertion perspective, but I think from a mental balance, like, I mean, sometimes when I'm out there pedaling for, you you know 100 miles or something I reach this state where I feel very balanced and very in alignment and at this calm place but then I may be dead tired like the next day but I I think you can have some balance in those extreme moments I don't know what do you Yeah, I mean, I know exactly what you're talking about.

I experienced that myself. And so that's why I think how we define balance is important. And perhaps the word balance itself is the wrong word or the wrong thread to pull to even address this subject matter. I've never seen Rich more beautiful than at the end of Ultraman. Right when he crosses the finish line, he is more him than he ever has been. Completely stripped of anything, you know, literally anything. It's really beautiful. Do you consider him to be balanced in that moment? Definitely.

Hi, when you were mentioning a few things kind of popped into my head, but I don't know if I can actually really express it the same way it kind of occurred in my head. So one was about the pendulum. So kind of, I think when you responded to Rich Julie, you kind of said, yeah, it's kind of somewhere in the middle. But I think it's not really like being still in there and stopping, and so there is the whole dynamism stops. But it's almost like I'm kind of imagining, like you almost kind of rise above the pendulum,

and you kind of have a choice. It's not necessarily, oh, you become holy or something, but there is a... I don't know. Not necessarily to take away all these nice, fun things, like the things that makes us really alive, but somehow... And also not necessarily to make it totally stagnant either.

So that was the image. What I was thinking about was also, isn't it about the relationship to yourself and the connection to yourself? I was trying to think about where is your reference point at a moment in time. So if you kind of have the right... I'm imagining if I am actually really connected to the impulse and the energy that is coming from inside me, I might do something that might look really extreme from outside, but I'm actually in perfect alignment with it.

And that's kind of maybe what is balanced so it is a kind of like this regular check-in and whenever if this idea of doing something whatever it is is actually if we try to look for something that is outside of ourselves or it's kind of if it comes as as a result of you know like a because other people are telling us something, or, you know, we are influenced. So it's a kind of like, if that connection is missing, then I think we go into these extreme situations where it swings off, and we kind of go in the other direction, maybe.

Anyway, that's my thoughts. Yeah, I like that. I like the idea. I mean, what I got from the first piece that you were talking about is the idea of being the observer of the pendulum. Like, the pendulum is going to swing. You're not going to stop it. But it's your relationship to that swing.

And if you can become the observer, then you're in that place of equanimity. Right? Yeah, and you were talking about rising up, sort of rising up out of the turbulence of the experience. And yes, if you're rooted within yourself and a very deep connection, that's kind of the idea. It's like everything can be happening, but you're still in neutral. It doesn't mean that you don't have likes and dislikes, or you don't enjoy this or not enjoy that, but at least you can tap into that

space and that's in yoga when we're practicing that's the ujjayi breath when you're experience the exertion and the surrender at the same time that's what that training has given me in life off the mat is to be able to tap back into that connect to the breath and then you're you know you're in that neutrality but yeah it's completely unique to every person. So Rich's balance is not my balance. It's completely different. I'm finding this conversation really fascinating, finding it difficult to stay in balance

because I've got like a million thoughts going through my head at one time. I think that personally I can have incredible days, incredible days around connection with people, around experience, usually physically, like exercise or exertion, and also connection with people. And like that particular day, and it's happened enough in my life that I can almost be like yeah tomorrow is gonna be a come down like like blue Monday or something you know just like I'm really interested because I've gotten to the point where I can almost

predict it but I don't necessarily want to go through that, because I find that there would be ideally a balance, kind of what you were speaking about, being neutral enough in the moments of a really intense, amazing day, love that, and then be okay with the next day that you need to rest. And that, I've dissected, like, there's, like, a physical and emotional, like, the balance needs to come back physically, the rest of the body needs.

But what I find, like, I'm okay with physical recovery, but, like, an emotional recovery, like an emotional come down, where I just feel low, and it's, like, a day where I can't seem to pull myself together to do I can eventually do the things I would like to do but if if I had any structure plan for that day it all goes out the window um I just can't make myself do what I had planned to do or something like that and so I'm curious okay I'm getting a really roundabout way to the question um when you were you and Colin were speaking of different bodies, like I've heard

of that, you know, learning about that, like a physical body or a causal body. Like, do you think there's an emotional imbalance and a physical imbalance, or if something happens in the emotional body, it can be out of balance, or something that happens in the physical body that can be out of balance, or like, do those all need to click together for us to find that balance yeah i mean they're different things they're different energies different bodies um and what i would say is i think in this culture i think what you're speaking to is in this culture we're always chasing the high the good was it good is it great you feel great you feel fantastic you feel amazing and you know speaking to guru recently, I mean, that's immature. It's just immaturity.

It's like that's not what we should be chasing. Life is full of many colors and various states of experience. And so it's that equanimity or that place place if you're connecting into what's beyond all those highs and lows that you can um you know not not have the trigger where you're like oh i feel depressed why am i depressed you know i should take a prozac or you know i should go force myself out to go run around or try to change this um an ayurvedic approach would be living in harmony with the cycles. There's an appropriate time. It depends on what's going on in your life.

But we have to understand that if we go on the pendulum or the roller coaster and we want to ride the ride and we're like screaming our heads off at the top and hanging out of a car, there is going to be a downward experience. And that's okay. But just understand that the life shouldn't all be about chasing the good. And we look on Instagram and all this illusionary life that's being projected everywhere. And, you know, this is a conversation that I've been having a lot on my podcast is, you know, what is a, what is using this tool to spread the message and what is insanity? Like just craziness, you know, just filming yourself

all the time. And, and then you create this, I mean, do we film ourselves, you know, when we have snot on our faces or when we, you know, have the flu or, you know, or we, we look like shit. No, you know, I don't, you know, so it's like, we're creating this illusion and it's like, you know, life is great. It's so fantastic, you know, and it's amazing. And aren't you amazing? And that's not real. It's not honest. It's not authentic. And as a being being you're going to have a lot of different experience and so an Ayurvedic approach or a more balanced approach, Ayurveda living in harmony, would be to trust yourself and to honor yourself and to love yourself even if you're depressed and all things will pass and if you

learn to love yourselves in those moments and I would not push through them. That's not my inclination. Respect how you naturally feel, pay attention to how you naturally feel, and nurture yourself in those spaces. And then, you know, you will write, you know, it will shift naturally, you know. So I hope that answered your question yeah yeah thank you yeah i would say just as a corollary to that um you know i of course agree that uh that uh you know we shouldn't be judging our emotional states placing value judgments on them like oh no i'm gonna you know i i had this experience i know tomorrow i'm gonna be depressed that's bad you know or I should avoid that or how can I expedite you know getting through that so that I can then feel better because I'm supposed to feel

good because I have all these things in my life and if I don't feel good then there's something fundamentally wrong with me like that whole like mental masturbation is is I think you know unproductive but I would say at the same time you know the example that you set up was interesting because it started is, I think, unproductive. But I would say at the same time, the example that you set up was interesting because it started with you having a social experience in which you were sort of fulfilled and engaged, yes? And then the anticipation of the come down the next day

and the kind of emotional hangover that ensues. Is that accurate? Almost just like a... not an anticipation of it, just like an entertained, like, I wonder if that'll happen again kind of thing. Right. But perhaps some attention can be placed on how you experience that social situation

so that you're not depleted, right? So somehow you're getting, there's something vampiric going on or you're lacking a certain boundary and so you're putting out all this energy or you're allowing like your energy to be sucked up by a bunch of other people and that might be enjoyable or whatever,

but it's leaving you depleted the next day. So can you set up a healthier boundary or can you be in an emotional state where you're a little more neutral in that experience so that you can go through that and enjoy it and wake up the next day and not have like a big, you know, crash. Thank you. That was really helpful. I mean, Julie's really good with the boundary stuff. Yeah. Helpful I Mean Julie's really good with the boundary stuff Yeah Well, yeah, I mean it's it's kind of like okay

So now we're getting back to what I what my first answer was was not going on the high-low train It doesn't mean highs are so fun. I know but they're so extreme Yeah, and they are and everyone should should experience them. But that's what comes with maturity. It's like, you know, you kind of understand, you know, like, I don't know, Guru Singh actually says in his teachings, like, please don't be excited. Be less excited. You know, because excitement is immaturity, and we need mature wisdom. So be grateful. wisdom. So be grateful. Be immersed in blessing and devotion. Be wise in your discernment and take balanced action. But don't be excited. You know, don't be like, oh, I'm so excited. So,

you know, so crazy. So I guess that again goes back to, yeah, learning how that you're an energetic being. I'm going to work on, I'm going to teach you guys some stuff about sealing your field and working with your energetic field. But yeah, you find your neutral. Like think of a Jedi warrior. Like a Jedi warrior is not going through those extremes. Whoever they are, they are not losing their shit.

Luke Skywalker's not like, oh my God, it's so amazing. I can't wait. I can't wait to see Darth Vader. And then like, oh, I'm so depressed. My dad. Yeah, you know. I can't wait to see Darth Vader. And then like, oh, I'm so depressed. My dad. Yeah, you know. I mean, it's a great example that we have in our culture.

I mean, Jedi warriors, they're just on it, man. They are so grounded in themselves that nothing is going to fuck them up. Nothing. I mean, even being shot at. You know, it's all about having it together and that's the kind of maturity that we need so I'm saying everybody should be who they are you know rich should do his extreme whatever he wants to do but we

are exciting very exciting but we all just need to find you know our authentic self and then find that maturity and take responsibility for our own selves and yeah if and don't you know don't freak out if your life is not, you know, one happy My Little Pony party, you know, from start to finish, because it's not going to happen. So anyway, but anyway, I wanted to share. Yeah, I was just going to say that I think it's when you you see that kind of moment when you worry about that that high that you're enjoying and you think you know fuck i'm gonna

it's gonna go down i think it's really good because if you can see that already that's like really really important and just to give you a real life example of it this morning so yesterday was a really cool day, and it was so awesome. We had great conversations. I went to bed, really chilled out. But I had a kind of a shit conversation in the middle of my day yesterday to do with trying to sell my business and talking to a bunch of lawyers. Some of them are great, but, you know.

They're all horrible. And so I had that. I went to bed. I went to sleep. And when I woke up this morning, I just woke up in bad mood. I kind of woke up and I just kind of went. And I knew, just kind of looked into my head slightly and I could just see that there was some kind of dream in my subconscious. So it definitely had conflict. So I thought, okay okay my day is now going to be defined around this

and as I was having that conversation I realized that I then had my phone in front of my face and I was now on Facebook and I was like whoa okay this isn't good because I'm now just trying to find other people's reality to escape mine so then I just thought okay just sit up drink water meditate for 20 minutes and then i just went for breakfast and i went okay just clear it out and i think sometimes what we have to try and do is it's like taking the cachet of your subconscious dumping it out of your computer you gotta because so much stuff goes on when we're sleeping that we don't we're not conscious of and that can kind of bring tension and anxiety into your life. So you might masterfully control the conscious side of your life.

But the subconscious is there as well. But being able to see it and know that it's coming is great. Because then you can work around it and have a strategy. Which brings me to the yoga technique of the afternoon. We're going to practice yoga nidra, which is an ancient yoga practice of lucid dreaming. So it teaches you to be lucid while you're sleeping. And it's a really...

How many people have done it before? Yay. So we're going to do one of the practices out of the Bihar School of Yoga. And it's a very amazing relaxation technique. So I think that's a good place to stop. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Hit me up on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and let me know your thoughts. I'd love to hear your perspective. Hey, you know what? I started making videos again. As you guys know, I put the word out on this podcast a couple months ago that I was looking for a creative, collaborative partner, a filmmaker, an editor, a cinematographer, or a photographer that I could work with. And I got so many amazing submissions.

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