TrueLife - Naturopathic Insights: Transformative Strategies for Health and Happiness

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/Introducing Dr. Jake, a beacon of innovation in the realm of holistic wellness. As an ardent Naturopathic Doctor, Dr. Jake's fervor lies in unraveling the mysteries of human potential through the potent trifecta of flow states, botanicals, and the endocannabinoid system. With a vision set to revolutionize health and self-realization, Dr. Jake delves deep into the neurobiology of flow states, showcasing their pivotal role in unlocking peak performance and boundless creativity. Beyond mere theory, Dr. Jake's research extends to practical applications, tackling challenges like trauma and addiction with a holistic approach. Venturing further into the realm of plant power, Dr. Jake explores the wonders of adaptogens, the gut-brain axis, and the endocannabinoid system, shedding light on their potential to elevate well-being. Moreover, Dr. Jake's expertise extends to bioelectric medicine, with a particular focus on leveraging the Vagus Nerve and breathwork to optimize health outcomes for all.Dedicated to sharing this wealth of knowledge, Dr. Jake offers tailored solutions, from in-house team trainings to personalized coaching, empowering individuals and organizations alike to harness the transformative power of nature's remedies. Get ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery and holistic healing with Dr. Jake as your guide.https://www.sweetwaterholistic.com/courses One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Heiress through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Kodak Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope your day is going beautiful. I hope the sun is shining, the birds are singing, I hope you got to enjoy the lunar New Year, the year of the year of the year the dragon, and I hope that you realize the world is changing in ways that are more beautiful than you can possibly imagine. And if you choose to tune into that, then you can be a part of that

positive change and change everyone and your environment. And it can be wonderful. That being said, I want to welcome everybody to an incredible show today. I would like to introduce to you, you, you, you, you, Dr. Jake Felici, a visionary in the field of holistic wellness and natural health. As the founder of Sweet Water Holistic, Dr. Felice is dedicated to advancing the science and practical application of natural medicines for medical and recreational markets worldwide. With a rich background that blends Eastern and Western influences, Dr. Felici brings a unique perspective to his work. Having studied Shiazhu, Akito, and Tai Chi in Japan, and immersing himself in traditional healing arts during his travels to Thailand, Nepal, and India, he emburcing, he embursing

He embodies a deep connection with the natural world. His passion for fostering human potential and raising awareness of the therapeutic properties of botanicals is evident in his world-class education experiences. His expertise extends to the neurobiology of flow states, where he delves into the mechanisms behind enhanced performance and creativity. Through Category 1CME courses translated into four languages, ladies and gentlemen, he educates health care professionals on the Indo-Canabinoids. system and its applications. His consultancy works spans major cannabis companies, including Willie Nelson's brand, Till Ray Inc. and the Manitoba Harvest, where he provides scientific marketing and compliance advice.

As a coach, advisor, and brand strategist, he empowers high-performing individuals and athletics and business to access flow states and optimize their potential. With a holistic approach to wellness and a commitment to transformative botanical therapies, Dr. Jake is at the forefront of revolutionizing health and well- being on a global scale. Thank you for being here today. How are you, my friend? George, I'm good. It's great. It's great to be here. How is Hawaii treating you this fine day? I wake up every day and I'm thankful that I'm on the rock out here. It's incredible. Yeah. I'm a little bit envious.

It's, um, I feel like it's a giant classroom that called me and I came out and I've been being educated here. And I, on some level, I feel that, uh, it's almost time for me to go. back and start practicing some of the lessons that I've learned here, you know. So, thanks for asking, yeah. You know, I am fascinated by this shift that seems to be happening. And when I read your bio, when I read some of the things you've been talking about, I think we're seeing a fundamental shift in relationships. And maybe before we get into that, man, maybe you can just fire.

Is there anything else you want to, that I left out of that background or you want to jump into relationships or what do you think, man? I think we should go with your flow and let's jump right into relationships. Let's do it, man. Yeah. So on the topic of relationships, I was reading a recent post where you talked about the way in which turpines and things change when you're smoking a joint. Seems to me everything changes when you smoke in a joint. A lot of things change when you are smoking a joint, including the time space continuum for that matter. Yes, and that's, you know, that has historically, one of my favorite things about the joint experience versus the pipe or the bong is one, it's got a little bit of an elegance to it, even though it is an inhalation.

So, but it has an aesthetic to it. And plus it can be very social, at least historically speaking from stoner culture, passing it to the left hand side, etc. So I like that about it. And the chemistry does indeed change from the initial, when the tip, the burning ember is at the beginning of the joint versus at the end, because the cannabinoids, for example, will go into a gaseous state, travel downstream. Some of them will then condense and reform closer to the,

the receiving end, which would ultimately be called the road. So it changes. But I think that one of the most interesting things about cannabis that is not really talked about is the social aspect. And, you know, I don't, it's been, oh, for me, just personally, George, it's been over a year since I've been by THC. Historically speaking, though, I've gotten over my 10,000 hours in, let's just say that. So, so, so, I've been there and I've done that.

And I think that in terms of the profound effects for me from a psychedelic state induced by cannabis, the music connection is huge. Also, the nature connection. I, I don't know how often, how often do you get a chance to get into the ocean living where you are? I try to go weekly. I don't always make it right there. But yeah, there's something to be said about submersing yourself in nature. Historically for me that, and I think that part of what happens for me in nature, whether that be in the forest or in the ocean, because I have been a long time dedicated surfers since my early 40s. I didn't start as a young kid.

But that kind of tied into the music piece is the auditory experience. And a lot of the times when we think of psychedelics, we're thinking of a visual experience. But the first time I ever tried cannabis that worked for me, I tried it a couple times and it never worked. But I was in the forest. And it was in the summertime. time. And it was in western Pennsylvania and the cicadas, which are these large singing insects, were all around and I had this auditory experience. And it was quite impactful for me. Also, I think when I am in a natural state, at least historically speaking, the auditory experience is different.

So I think neurologically something different is happening. And in terms of human-human connection, when we sing together or when we go to a concert together, it can be this kind of a bonding experience. And for me, and I'm not a good surfer, but I love, love, love to surf when I'm on a wave, sometimes you don't have to look to see where that division of the whitewater and the green water are. Sometimes you can just listen and you can hear the ocean. And just this, so this soundscape and this connection with nature. And I'll tell one more story and then kick it back to you.

I had the pleasure of getting to the Grand Canyon this summer. Yeah. And I was on a bicycle trail on, I'm pretty sure it was the south rim. And it was getting dark. And I was very happy that it was getting dark because, many of the tourists were leaving to go on there separate ways. And I was trying to get out of and away from people. And the moon was going to be very bright that night. So I was very much looking forward to seeing the moonscape of the canyon. And I found this beautiful spot right on the edge as the sun was going down and then the colors and then the moon came up. And I was a little disappointed. with the visual aspects of the canyon in the moonlight because the colors just weren't as bright as in the daytime. But, George, the crickets were singing.

And they were singing. I was in this meadow right at the edge. And they were singing all around and behind me in a flat spot. But they were also singing down into the canyon. And so I could close my eyes and hear the scape of the canyon. and I could hear that there was a great depression, and it was just an amazing, almost psychedelic experience with no substances imbibed through this auditory input.

Man, it's beautiful. And I think we share some similar passions, be it in the water or hiking. And I think it speaks volumes of the way in which there can be auditory hallucinations or when you were telling the story about the canyon, I imagine on some level the sound affects what we see, maybe the vibrations out there. But that's an interesting relationship between those two things, right?

Absolutely. I think you're right because we know, especially from the auditory, the cochlear branch of the eighth cranial nerve, which also is part of that's the balance apparatus, the cochlear branch, but there's an auditory branch as well. So the same nerve is running your balance through the ear as well as your hearing through the ear. And when we get into peak states, and it can be something that's extremely pleasant or it can be something that even is extremely scary, like a car accident, for example. And everything slows down and even it goes quiet.

Okay, so I don't know if you've had that experience, but or if you're in an athletic situation, the Super Bowl was just yesterday. Sometimes, you know, the crowd noise goes silent. There is a down regulation of a certain part of the nervous system so that we can pay more attention. That auditory piece comes down and we enter this state of silence. Also, theta waves change and the sense of time changing. But so our nervous system can't hand. We have a certain bandwidth, just like our computers that we're talking here on. And so while some things experiences will upregulate, others will downregulate.

So if you are in an environment where there are visual cues with audio cues, the experience will be blended. And I'm not saying one is better or one is worse, but certainly it will be different. and in the psychedelic arena, that and setting is important. And one of the best ways to control our environment, whether that be in that psychedelic state or whether it be in a work state at your office, is music, musical. And also, I think also fragrances can really help us enhance our experience as well. Yeah, I love it. It speaks to the idea. There's a great book by a, I was just reading, it's called Elev.

It's called Elevator. People Watching that you can see this. Elevated by Sebastian Marancolo. And it's cannabis as a tool for mind enhancement. And it really speaks. Oh, it's fascinating. And it speaks to this idea of awareness. And some people find it through psychedelics.

Some people find it through hiking. Some people find an altered state of awareness through breathing. And there's all these different techniques. Hmm. And I think with the flow data, maybe I think you're on the forefront of so much of these new discoveries that are happening. That's one of the reasons why I'm so excited to talk to you. Maybe we are becoming aware of how to use our senses. Maybe we've forgotten how to use them and now we're integrating them again.

What do you think? I think we have forgotten a lot. And I also think that as we remember again, as we remember how to use these, you know, there's, different concepts of time. There's the linear concept of time where you and I, we'd sit in our elementary school classroom and we'd see the Declaration of Independence was here and the War of 1812 was there and the Civil War, this linear concept of time. Another concept of time is circular. The watch, the clock that goes around, the winter turning to spring again, these yearly cycle, so time is a circle, but time can also be thought of as a spiral. So as we have forgotten these things,

and we re-remember them from our past, from our ancestors, and from our indigenous heritage, where we were deeply tied to place and language and culture and all of that, we come to it again, as a remembering, but also as a completely new. And I think the awareness is incredibly important as far as that goes. So I pick it back to you, George, and then we'll bat this back and forth here. Yeah. I love it. You know, I do think that the way we've been conditioned to think about time has had a profound

like retardation on the way we see the world. Like it's really, and if you just look at the way, you know, we have gotten into specificity. Like things have gotten really narrow. We've gotten a lot of people that are specialists in this one thing. And that's great.

I love specialists and people that are experts in this certain little field. But on some level, it's taken us away from the big picture. And when I think about the idea of time used as a spiral, I kind of think of it as the double helix and it's moving upwards, even though history is, rhyming. I think we're moving upwards. And an example of that that I found in my life is that you know, when you go through a tragedy, I was as a young kid, I was, I was, I was molested as a

young kid. And then, you know, as I get older, I see it happen to someone else. But in there, I learn how to help that other person deal with it. And in doing so, I'm helping my younger self deal with it. So it's like you get to go full circle and now you see this thing. And I think that's the way the world is trying to speak to you. Like, hey, look, I'm sorry this thing happens to you, but I'm going to give you a chance to help someone else through it. And in doing that, you're going to be able to forgive yourself, you're going to be able to get better and help the world. So we're seeing time for the first time, at least I am in this whole new aspect. And I love it, man. It's mind-blowing. Yes. Yes. And I think we have a lot of trauma in our culture. And I don't know

if that's been the case throughout all of humanity. Certainly, there have been long histories of humans in warfare, et cetera. And so, but I think you mentioned the re-remembering. We have also lost contact in many ways with elders in our culture. Yes. And as we get older and see those experiences in younger ones, what we can share that can be very healing is our sense of our personal loss. It's our personal story. And if the audience is appropriate and it is received,

there's a reflection back of that, oh, I am not alone and I know that maybe I can get through this. So I think that that's an incredibly important feature. And I think we have to be aware of our trauma. I think part of the reason for so many addictions in our culture is because we're not always in touch with our trauma. It kind of gets sublimated, goes into shadow, and it will kind of want to erupt in various circumstances. And we want to keep it down, want to keep that anxiety down, or keep that sense of ill at ease down. And substance abuse can do that temporary. but it does so at the cost of a certain lack of awareness of the outer world or outer environment. So I think that the sharing of a story as an elder allows the younger person to have a new or an enhanced or changed awareness.

I love it. It's really well said. And when I think of elders, I think of rights. of passage and rituals which seem to be absent a lot, somewhat in our societies today. And if you just think about that, there's a great, there's a lot of great people that have written on this. And I always quote, Marseilleat and he talks about this idea of the terror before the sacred. But when I think about, when I think about rituals or rights of passage, I want everyone to do a little mind experiment with me. So close your eyes and think about sitting maybe out in nature somewhere in a forest and you're watching this right of passage from a young man becoming a man, a boy becoming a man. So there's young kids there, there's kids under

10 that are watching maybe their brother or their mentor passing through this stage and then they see them with their father and they see them with their grandfather and they're going off to hunt. The little kid gets to see their brother moving in this direction. The gentleman, the young boy that's becoming a man, he gets to see the transition. He gets to be part of that transition. And then the father and the grandfather, they get to see the young man becoming the man and they remember the times that they did it. So in some way, the grandfather can look all the way back to the young child and see each stage that he has been in. And the young child can look forward and see each stage of it. And it's this idea of elder. It's this idea of rites of passage

that really help us not only see things, but participate in them symbolically. And I think that that's huge in transforming the way. world we live in today. I think we need more of that. Love that. I love that. And, you know, we do not have many rituals left, but we still have a few. The funeral rights are one, but

also the wedding ceremony is another common one. And I've had a couple of those myself personally. And I remember after my first wedding, it's horrible to say it that way,

but this is the day and age. Yeah. We woke up the next morning and I didn't really feel honestly like anything had changed. However, we went to brunch and everybody saw us as different. And so we were treated differently

because they saw us as different. So you mentioned the young brothers and the older brothers, and you mentioned their grandparents, the witnessing of the right, it is not only just about my personal transformation inside, but the transformation in the culture in and around us that can also be transformative. Yeah, the idea of the witness and the observer.

And I think that speaks to how transformative you can be in your life, if you're willing to see yourself different, or if you're willing to see the traumatic event that happened to you, different, you can really change the way you interact in your relationship with the world, right? Yes, I like that witness and observer. Because the witness is the subjective experience, and the observing is the objective piece. And we can, in one of my PowerPoints,

I have a slide of a bunch of people on a roller coaster. And it is very clear, I picked this slide intentionally, it is very clear that most of the people on that roller coaster are having a really fun time. But there is one or two that are not having a good time. They are too scared. So the objective experience, these people are in the exact same. place at the exact time, but the subjective experience is different. And I know I no longer enjoy those rides. So one time I went with my nephews and I was like, I can't wait for this thing to be over.

That was me. It didn't used to be me. But that subjective, and you are absolutely right, we can in many ways narrate our own stories. And we may not be able to change the objective features of the past, but we are not done with a final chapter so we can always rewrite that story. Yeah, that's an effective tool. Is that something that you, that you, when you work with people, be them athletes or be it people that are trying to find a better way in their own life? Is that something you work with? Like the subject.

You have to. You have to. If there's blockages, there has to be an integration of the psychic block, whether it's, a certain pressure situation that they have had athletic. Athletics are easy to talk about, that they've had a breakdown in that particular area or that particular event or against that particular team or against a certain particular player where there's competition. There needs to be some type of an integration, part of which involves the story. You can try to change the story and it may have some effects or it may not have any effects.

But if the experience and the story are changed together, that can resonate. And so how does the neurology process it is very interesting for me. I personally work, if I'm working with a client where there's an angst or a fear element involved, I really work with flexion extension dynamic in the hardwiring of the musculature, how to explain that to the audience. Flection experiences are usually fear-based. Think of full fetal position where that's when you're most terrified in curling up into a little ball. Or you can tell if somebody's hunched over and is just afraid versus extension,

what do people do in American football when a touchdown is scored? It's an extension event in longboard surfing, which I'm just a longboarder, an old dude on a board anymore these days, but the sole arch where you're looking up at the sky while you're feeling the ocean under your feet in this extension-based ecstasy. So extension and flexion, and when there is negative angst,

there is always an associated tendency for flexor muscles to be depolarized technically. Now, here's a poker tip for everybody. A lot of poker players will wear turtlenecks, but you can notice a tell with the scaling muscles that a lot of people aren't even aware of, but if you look at the musculature right on the side of the neck, if somebody is anxious, those scaling muscles will twitch a little bit. And the scaling muscles are associated with the ribs. They connect the upper ribs to the neck.

And their real job is when we're at the edge of our breath, they pull those ribs up. So they're associated with breath. And breath work and fear also go hand in hand. So we have a flexion and an extension dynamic in addition to a relaxed parasympathetic or tension. attention, so the breath can be also an important thing. Animals, you'll see dogs shake it off. They're shaking their nerves. They're shaking.

Cats will sometimes they'll groom themselves, or if you have a kitty at home, and it was a bad kitty, and you tell that there was a bad kitty. It might go to its bowl and eat a little food to help kind of, I think with humans, walking is an excellent way to work through some of these neuromuscular components of anxiety. So all of this can be important, but it really is how to identify particular problems with the particular individuals and then work with them through their experience of their nervous system. It's fascinating to me to think about the way in which the body keeps the score. And it sounds to me like you really have a very unique understanding of the dynamics between the neuro, the neuro side of it and the body side of it.

Like, how did that come to be? Like, where did you learn that relationship? Oh, great question. I think, I think the mental piece really came studying martial arts in Japan. but I also studied Shiazhu, which is a healing art. And one of my three big senseys in Japan, Mishima Sensei, who's still alive to this day, he was also a martial artist, but he did not do my martial art. And we strictly did Shiazhu together.

I did that at his Shiazhu Center. And he embodied, Zen to a large degree. I literally felt different in his presence. So they say in getting a taste of Zen, he introduced me to the thought processes of a Zen hyku poet and Zen priest named Taco and Soho, who wrote a book in the early 1600s called the Unfettered Mind, which was his instructions to a sword master on maintaining mental clarity and flow during a sword duel. And those duels, many of them, some of them, they would use wooden swords, but many of them, they would use the real deal and they would be death duels.

And Taco On Soho was one of Miyamoto Musashi's early teachers. Musashi was regarded by many as the greatest swordsman of. of Japan. He had 60 death duels, was undefeated. And Musashi ultimately came through the warriorship to a, be a peaceful man, because he realized, I can't lose.

I have to put my sword down because people challenge me. I kill them. And so that mental peace happened there. Now, the physical piece happened. I read a book that was written in 1948

by a PhD biochemist of all things named Moshe Feldonchrist. It was called the Body and Matured Behavior, where he looked at how Darwin and some of the early naturalists observed these flexion extension dynamics and animals and brought them into the human frame. And I'm going to tie this into the body, keeps the score here in just a second. But Feldenchrist talks about,

he describes how if you think about the fear response as flexion and the ecstasy response as extension, why does the lion or the tiger roar? If they're waiting in ambush and the deer is on the other side of the bush, the lion will or the tiger will roar as it's charging and that roar goes to the bear. through that auditory branch of the eighth cranial nerve, which the deer have too, creates an instantaneous flexion response, which in the deer is necessary because the iliosolus muscles shorten and the glutes lengthen, which means that it gets them in a position to spring away as quickly as possible. But first, it's a fear response. And then there's this ability to to explain.

explode with lengthened glutes shortening and it gives an opportunity that way. So Feldenkrais talks about this flexion extension dynamic, and over time, especially if we are sitting in desks, which are hips and knees are in a flex position and frequently our neck is in a flex position, over time, those tendons will become shorter. So the physical body changes so that we're more in a flex position or sometimes people will have a very forward. So in a therapeutic session where either through yoga or passive stretching or I'm a big fan and I studied Thai massage in Chiang Mai and northern Thailand for manually lengthening those tendons, there are things called Golgi tendon bodies. It's one of the reasons why after a massage or after stretching or after yoga, we get this sense of relaxation. But if over time we're in negative states of emotion, our bodies become habitually flexible.

And that idea for me originally came from Feldenkrais. And I've taken it a little bit further in my own. We could talk about it or not. I know you're in the water a lot, but I have. a hypothesis of Stoke, which also involves that. But let's do that maybe in another few minutes, because I think you probably want to finish this thread here, George. I think it's fascinating.

And I didn't, I don't really know a whole lot about the shortening and the lengthening or the clenching and the unclinching. Yeah, it's a hardwired reflex. So if anyone out there wants to Google Moreau Reflex, M-O-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-E reflex, it's a neat. It's a neonate reflex that if you're, if you have a hospital birth, the babies are very safely tested to see if they can recognize that they're falling through space. And the humans, because as newborns were very uncoordinated, you know, the deer Bambi will get up and walk around a few hours after she's born. But the human is, it takes us a couple years to really learn how to walk well. So our Moreau reflex is primitive, but it is that balance, that senses that we're falling, and they'll kick those SOAS will kick. And sometimes it can be thought of also as an arboreal reflex, arbor meaning tree, where the monkeys, the baby monkeys are left in the trees while their parents go and forage.

And the trees are the safest place for them. and if they've happened to fall through space, the safest position once the eighth cranial nerve recognizes that we're falling is in full fetal position because the hard parts of our body are protecting and the soft parts are not exposed. And we're a round surface, so there's more of a chance of a good bounce. So a lot of people think that it's an arboreal reflex, but I traced it back neurobiologically a lot further than that to it's several hundred million years old. I won't want to say several, at least a couple hundred million years old, the lateral line of fish. Okay. The fish have that line, that stripe on from the longitudinal stripe from the head to the tail. that is a branch of the eighth cranial nerve.

And what happens when you're in a school of fish and the big predator comes up and you sense that pressure wave. The whole school will, and in fish, it's a dorsal ventral undulation, which is how we paddle when we're surfing. It's more like how a crocodile walks as opposed to in humans, it's become a flexion extension. So it's gone from dorsal ventral undulation. kind of as the evolutionary machinery has, and this is all the Felice hypothesis of Stoke.

This is not, this is just all, I call it visionary science, but the lateral line of fish is involved in rapid fear response. It has become in humans, the auditory response, which when the tiger roars also does that, and we also know through Moreau reflex and through tons of naturalistic, observation, this flexion extension dynamic. Anyway. No, it's mind-blowing. I've heard you refer to the eighth cranial nerve a few times, but maybe you can give

us some background on that. Like what? Okay. So there's different kinds of nerves. Okay. Nerves that come out of our spinal core that, you know, move our muscles are called spinal nerves, but some nerves just come straight. out of the base of the skull. They don't go through the spinal cord. They come out through the base of the skull, and they usually control things in our head and neck area.

Hearing is eighth cranial nerve. Vision is involved in cranial nerves one, two, and three. Certain parts of the innervation of the face and the face musculature are cranial nerves five and seven, for example. So, so, so, And one of the most interesting cranial nerves is an extremely long one called the vagus nerve. It's the 10th cranial nerve. And the vagus nerve innervates our heart and it innervates our breathing apparatus and it innervates our gut. And there is something that folks can do a little search on called vagal therapy or vagus nerve therapy, which frequently will involve breathing exercises or sometimes eye or head movement exercises that can bring a profound sense of relaxation. The vagus nerve, the Latin comes from the same root word as vagabond. It's the wandering nerve. So it doesn't go through our spinal cord, but it comes out of our head

and goes all the way down into the viscera of our thoracic and abdominal cavity. And people say you get a gut feeling about something that a lot of the times can be vagus nerve and um just to tie vagus nerve into endocannabinoid system yeah is our friendly gut bacteria on one side of the gut lumen are using endocannabinoids signaling molecules to talk to our nervous system and immune system they talk to the immune system through a different pathway, but they communicate directly to our nervous system through vagus nerves. And they produce serotonin, these gut bacteria. And so this, and we're now, the literature on the microbiome is what it's called is exploding. And not only do the bugs influence,

I mean, there's so many ways that they influence us, but they can influence us to have positive moods or the bad bacteria, why are they bad? Because they're not healthy for us. They will secrete chemicals that make us feel crappy when we eat healthy food. But if we eat Burger King, or I probably shouldn't have said a brand there, but if we eat typically unhealthy food, they'll give you a short burst of feel-good chemicals so these bugs in many ways can actually train us. So there's this whole continuum of inner and outer experience that is very important and can be very contributory to our inner mental states. And to no end, I'm fascinated by that. Yeah, it is fascinating. It brings up some ideas about the endocannabinoid system that I've

been thinking about it. I'm curious to get your thoughts on. It seems to me like the more we begin to learn about this system, the more we begin to learn about the relationships to the substances that stimulate that system. You know, and it's new, it's fresh. And maybe that's what gives us these insights or like this, this flash of like, oh, this is happening over here. What do you think? Oh, 100%. I mean, and in this way, we spoke of ancestors. In this way, in a, very non-anthropomorphic sense to use a big word, plants can be our teachers. Yes. If you look at willow, for example, willow makes saliculates, which are aspirin-like chemicals,

and aspirin was derived from willow bark. And when they wanted to discover how it worked, they found this whole enzyme system called the cyclo-oxygenase system, because we wanted to know how willowel. So Willow taught us about this whole inflammatory cascade that can be influenced by plants. And this is where our N-SED class of drugs came from, for example. Now, cannabis has taught us about the endocannabinoid system. And I believe it was in the early 90s. Israeli researchers wanted to figure out what receptor system it ran on.

and there are, depending on who you talk to, two or three major cannabinoid receptors, but it's the most dense receptor system in the human body, more neural receptors dedicated to the endocannabinoid system than any other receptor system. And biology is very frugal. So we don't make these molecules just because we like them. we make them because they're useful and they have survival advantage. And part of what the endocannabinoid system does in the most general term is it enhances cellular communication. So that's why it works through so many organ systems is because they all have cannabinoid receptors,

which will change and be different in a healthy state versus in a disease state. And what I love about, what I hate about, I don't hate it about the end of cannabinoid system, but what I, I wish it weren't so is that I think that it has a marketing problem. I think they need to, I think they need to hire a PR firm because the fact that the word cannabis is used in this system, that's how we discovered it. But we don't call the cycle oxygenase pathway, the willow pathway. and more than just cannabis influences this system. Exercise positively enhances this system.

Adequate rest enhances the system. Acupuncture has been shown to upregulate it. Very important essential fatty acids modulate it. Probiotics modulate it. There's even a study of singing in women only, that enhances this system. And think of how good, I know how good I feel when I'm singing in the car

or when I'm singing in the shower. I may not sound good to you, but I sound good to me, and it makes me feel good, and it makes me feel connected, and it's kind of this access to a flow state. So what I love most about the endocannoid system for me personally,

as it has shown me this massive interconnectivity, not only of the physical physiology inside my skin, but also my relationship to my environment, including the food that I eat and the relationships that I have, both with other humans and with nature for that matter. I love it. You know, I wrote down cell communication because I'm a huge fan of the plants of teachers

or just nature itself as a teacher. I think that, you know, a battered coastline can probably teach you more than, you know, a year of a particular class, just depending on how well you observe the environment around you. And when I think of cell communication, you know, I think of the way the plants talk to us. And some people go, plants can't talk to you. That's ridiculous. Well, not in English or in Spanish or in Portuguese, they can't. But they can definitely speak to you by the way they grow or the things that are eating them. or the environment they're around.

Like if you just take time to, and usually it happens in a heightened state of awareness, be it through cannabis or psychedelics or breathing. But if you take time and you just sit in nature, I honestly believe that the world is speaking to you in a different kind of language, in a harmonious language, in a language you can see. Right?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Would you mind terribly? I've been riffing along. here. Would you mind if I riff a little bit on plant talk? Man, I would love to, please. So it's not anthropomorphic, nor is it of the same time scale that we have. But we're going to use some concrete examples, and then I'm going to even tie it into what we'll see how we'll see how far we get with this. Okay. We mentioned willow. Willow makes soliculates, which are aspirin-like compounds. Why in the world does Willow make this lots of other plants do, but Willow really makes a lot of it.

just like there's eight or nine other plants that make cannabinoids, but cannabis makes a lot of it. Or other plants like Lobelia will make a nicotine-like molecule, but tobacco makes a lot of nicotine, right? So with Willow, have you ever smelled the smell of cut grass? Yeah, of course. Of course you have. It smells pretty good, doesn't it?

But with plants, that is a dangerous signal for them. They're getting ripped and shredded and they're horrified and they're releasing this chemical, which actually happens to smell good for us. Now, Willow, if it is crushed or broken, it makes soliculates to help heal itself. Those soliculates, it will use to decrease inflammation in its own tissues. When we take willow bark or aspirin or one of its derivatives like ibuprofen, which is just a synthetic, it decreases our inflammation. Now, if you take those solicilates and you spray them on cannabis leaves while cannabis leaves are growing, guess what happens? The cannabis plant senses that as an alarm signal and it creates more terpenes, which are a kind of a molecule that the cannabis plants.

make in addition to cannabinoids, and it makes more cannabinoids. So there is this communication between willow and cannabis, or between willow and our body, that creates physiologic changes because these molecules that plants make are designed by evolution to trigger physiologic changes. Now, all species of willow everywhere you go in the world, are used to treat pain, every culture where it grows, uses it. And the same is true for cannabis. There's a Persian word for cannabis.

There's a Hebrew word for cannabis. There's a Sanskrit word for cannabis. There's a Chinese word for cannabis. Everywhere you go, it is used for the same thing. Now, to kind of pull it into the woo-woo a little bit, there is a family of plants called the Artemisian family. Wormwood is a member of this family. And just like everywhere cannabis is grown, it's used to treat pain, or everywhere that willow grows, it's used to treat pain.

Everywhere Artemisia grows, it is used to ward off evil spirits. Isn't that interesting? That kind of blows my mind a little bit that a class of plant that grows everywhere. How in the world did that happen? And I'm not saying that it's true, and I'm not saying that I believe in evil spirits, but that everywhere you go it is used to ward off evil spirits. Now, the indigenous cultures have super deep insights into pharmacology of plants without using chemical means. And I'll use one more example, and that's probably a lot of your listeners,

because I think you do a little bit of psychedelic stuff. I certainly hope you too because I've been talking about it so much. But ayahuasca. Iow is a combination of two plants, but not only do the two plants have to be combined, which was somehow intuitive because they live in completely different parts of the jungle or the forest, but one of them, if taken in an oral route,

our body has this enzyme called M-A-O. And if we digest it, if we digest it, it just breaks the DMT right down in your gut. But if there is an inhibition of that M-A-O, you can get this enhanced psychedelic effect. And in order for the traditional cultures to have come up with this, they had to intuit the chemical process to put this plant through, to actually chemically change it so that it properly goes through the guts so the DMT has its activity. So I'm not saying this to, I'm just saying this as a point of curiosity and points of intelligence that aren't, in cultures that don't necessarily follow our very well-established, objective, scientific, definitive paradigm.

which is so powerful, but there are these other subjective ways of maybe knowing that we at least have the potential to access as our birthright as humans. Yeah, it's really well said. It reminds me of, there's a book by Jeremy Narby, and it tells the story about these ethnobotanists. They go to South America, and they go way out into the middle of the Amazon, and they're sitting with this tribe and they're trying to learn, but the tribe is skeptical of them. And they're like, yeah, you guys just burn all our stuff. And so some of the ethnobotanists were like, yeah, what are you guys using for medicine?

And the tribes people were able to kind of weed out all the people that weren't serious. And everybody left except, I think, Jeremy Narby. And he stayed with him for like a month. And finally, after a month, they started talking to him. And they're like, you know, some of your colleagues asked us how we learn about these plants. And it's because the plants talk to us. And you're the only one here and didn't laugh at us when we started trying to tell people about it. And I want to show you.

And so in the book he gives this example of they go way out in their days. One of the tribesmen shows him this incredible snake. Go see the snake? The snake is the most poisonous snake in this particular part right here. And one bite in that snake will kill you. He says, I want you to look at the snake. So he looks at the snake and he points out this white diamond on the back of this green snake. And he goes, now look at the plant right next to that snake.

And he shows him the leaf is like the same ovate leaf is the same size and the same shape as the snake's head. And it has the same marking on that leaf. He goes, that is the plant telling us that it's the antidote for that snake bite. I mean, I get goosebumps when I think about that because like nature, it just goes to this idea that nature is constantly trying to communicate to us. And we are in a constant relationship with it. We've been so closed off and maybe out of fear we've been closed off. But, you know, it's, the answers seem to be right there begging us to pay attention to them on some level. Fascinating, George.

I love that. And thank you for sharing that. That's super important. Many, many, many, many cultures will say that that's how they learn about the plants. Is that the plants talk to them or that they see them in dreams. and you mentioned the snake and the plant. A similar thing will happen throughout the plant kingdom. One example is poison ivy, which I had a terrible experience with that as a kid

because I didn't know what it was and it happened two summers in a row and then I learned what it looked like, you know. So, but poison ivy will create these terribly itchy red blistery lesions because the plant is using the plant, nicotine, for example, a half a pound of nicotine will kill a horse. Nicotine is an anti-erbivory compound. It's an alkaloid that the plant makes that says, I'm not going to swear on your podcast, but it says, stay the F away and do not eat me, mofo, right? So poison ivy grows in this particular climate, and it lives in fairly specific areas. Also in that particular area, frequently another plant called milkweed will grow. And if you get poison ivy, you put the milkweed on, and it's very, very helpful, more helpful than calamine, for example.

And I wonder, because I don't know, but in order for that plant to share space with poison ivy, does it create chemical compounds that neutralize the poison ivy's poison? I don't know. But what I do know is that these plants that are the antidotes to occur frequently in nature. and that's a commonly known feature of Western herbalism. Yeah, I think it speaks to the idea of life itself. Death and life, love and hate, milkweed and poison ivy. Like, you know what I mean?

Like, they're all right there. And depending on how you look at them, you know, maybe it's an intoxicant or maybe it's a delirient. You know, maybe it is of something that helps you see things different. Or maybe it's a poison. Like it's so fascinating to see. And right here we're back to relationships. 100%. What about the flow state?

Like, you know, on some level, I think that, you know, the flow state, we see it in athletes. We see it in soldiers. We see it in mothers sometimes, you know. And it is like an awareness. Like maybe you could speak to the idea of it in some of the work that you're doing on it. Yes. Well, if you read my newsletter, My newsletter is titled the Flow State Apprentice because I feel that I have been an apprentice to flow for many years.

And I experience it like many of us do. Flow is the fusion of action and consciousness or doing and being aware. There are several features that are common for flow. One is that you have to have the appropriate level of skill to achieve flow. It's not something that is necessarily done without achieving a level of skill. But think of anything that you do pretty well, that you consider, oh, yeah, I do that pretty well. You likely have a sense of flow state, and flow states are by nature enjoyable. That's another feature of it.

But you have to combine the skill level with the difficulty of the task. The task has to be matched. So I love the surfing analogy because surfing is, and I think that's one of the reasons why so many surfers, we almost get addicted to flow because of that dopaminergic influence that we love. And I got to engulfers do the same thing. And so there's this appropriate level of skill mass with difficulty. And so the Hawaiians count their waves differently than we do on the mainland here. So in Hawaiian waves, I like a two-foot wave. I like a two-foot wave.

That's what I like to surf on. And if that wave is putting up near six feet, I'm scared. I was going to use a different word, but I start to get tight. So there has to be an element of feeling in control. So as the skill level that is required increases, the ability for me to be in control decreases less flow. So, and also one of the coolest things about flow is we have a decrease in self-consciousness.

I am no longer worried about what people are thinking of me because it's not that part of the brain. We talked about with eighth cranial nerve, how in order for the one part to come up, the hearing has to come down. So that we have this self-referential neural network of how I feel like I'm myself. It's called the default mode network. Very common in the psychedelic literature these days. This default mode network is the necessity for consciousness increases. There's something called the Locus Cyrillus, norapinephrine pathway that allows us to focus. So there's a little bit of an adrenaline piece and maintain that sense of focus in something,

and we're in that right mix of skill and the task down regulates. We aren't so much thinking about ourselves, but we are having a lot of fun. And another piece that is really necessary is that the situation needs to be giving us quick feedback. It's hard to be in flow state if I'm thinking about my five-year business model. It's much easier to be in flow state when you have an, instantaneous feedback. And then the other thing that really will frequently change, and there's the limited

literature that we have on it, is sense of time. And that is involved in theta waves or theta brain waves. So that as we enter a flow state, the brain activity is, and also our ability to accomplish the task is and do so without making mistakes. is enhanced and it also can be beautiful to watch someone in flow. Yeah, there's a certain sort of elegance to it. I was, I think Susan Brown is working on a project called Token of Me, where they're trying to find ways in which to measure what a flow state looks like.

It's an interesting concept, but I often wonder, can you measure spirituality? It seems that it's slippery. The moment, it's sort of like Schrodinger's cat. The moment you observe something, it slips out of your sight. You know what I mean? Just the act of trying to observe it. I like it. There are some measurements of psychedelics that are a little old that are based on, if I'm not mistaken, Tara Vodin or Tibetan Buddhist psychology where there is.

But what we get to is this, I wrote it down here. where you said earlier, the witness versus the observer. The subjective experience versus the objective. With science, we measure objective data. The subjective experience is, we are so primitive still with that.

That's, I think, the best way I can say it, because you can put me in an fMRI, And if I think of a rose, there's no way, and I even remember how that road, that my inner experience is there can be correlates. Oh, it looks like he's having a pleasant experience. But there's this great divide between the subjective experience and the objective. And I think that what I like to tell people is the flows, you know you're in flow, or sometimes you know, you know, when you just have come out of it. If it is just right on that razor's edge, sometimes the mind and the brain are so preoccupied that you don't even have a chance to self-reflect to say,

I think I'm having a fun time here. It just ends. And for me, if I'm on a wave that is at the edge of my ability, which is usually like, you know, maybe a five or a six-foot wave, a lot of the time, I just have the experience of when it's time to bail and then I go. And of course, I'm on it and I'm experiencing it. But there's something for me personally that the memory feature is doesn't really, is not really necessary. And then so afterwards, you get this sense in your body that is so pleasurable. And then I'm trying to remember how it was, but I wasn't really forming memories when it happened. And so I think that there is a, the subjective and the objective kind of get into this unified state.

And there's no necessarily me and something else. There's just this experience. And then when the neurologic structures recalibrate and the default, the situation is less critical and the default mode network comes up, all of a sudden, oh, I'm back. Does that resonate in all with you? Yeah. I think it speaks to the idea of harmony. And I think that different states of consciousness are trying to teach us things. And I think that the flow state is trying to teach us be here now.

Like right now. Yes. It makes sense, right? And if we go back a little bit about the beginning part, when you were talking about the relationship between skill and, flow. You touched on the idea of the 10,000 hours previously in the earlier part of the conversation. And it's there is something that speaks to the idea of hard work and sacrifice that gets you to that flow state, right? Yeah. Or if you think of like a boxer, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I,

I say specifically a boxer, but it could be any martial art, but just a boxer came to mind. one of the things that boxers are really good at George is getting punched in the face. They're good at it. They roll with it. Yeah. It doesn't bother them. Whereas if I get punched in the face, it's a big effing deal. If I get hit in the head or if I, you know, you think about when you bump your head and you're like, ah.

So the experience, one of the things I love to do, even though I'm not very good, but I love to share the ocean experience with friends, loved ones, family members. I love taking people surfing who are beginners. And I was with my good buddy, Aaron, ABC, you know who you are if you're listening. Hey, buddy. We were surfing. It was summer in Washington at Westport. And I had taken him, I think it was our second time surfing, if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway, I took him and we put him on a big 11 foot soft top and he must have ridden about 20 waves and had a lot of fun because it was a big board. It's like standing up on an aircraft carrier. It's very, so I believe this is how the situation went down. The second time, he wanted a shorter board. And I was like, ah, you know, I don't think you want a shorter board. I think you had so much fun. But anyway, so I'd let him, you pick your board, man, it's your board. Let's go.

So we were out and it was maybe a four foot day, two foot Hawaiian. I was out with my buddy. I'm so relaxed. I'm thinking this is so peaceful. I'm having a wonderful time. Aaron's here. I hope he's going to get. And he said to me, we were like maybe five, six feet from each other.

I said, how are you doing, buddy? And he said, I'm so scared. I'm so scared. So we had to go back in because if you're not having fun, you're done. So these 10,000 hours, part of what the 10,000 hours gets you is an experience of being in a situation so that you know the terrain, which 10,000 hours ago, you might have been unable to access. But because you are able to access it. And I think of, you know, another flow state, which is not physical, but chess. Those chess players can play for like five, six hours without eating or drinking and or even they have a headache.

And they're just locked in the game. Video games in many ways can be the same way. And, you know, you can play them for hours and hours. That's that sense of time changing. Yeah. I think it parallels nice with. the 10,000 hours in an environment can pertain not only to a physical environment, but also like a psychedelic environment or another state of awareness.

Oh, yeah. Right? And I think a lot of the times, you know, especially in the last cycle, we saw the tragedy of art link letters, daughter, jumping out a window, and all this things that were supposedly happened or that do happen or people have really difficult reactions to different states of consciousness. But I think that may be the same thing as someone out surfing in waves that are too big for them. Like, you know, who am I to say who's, who's, what condition is right for who, but you should be familiar with the environment or there's a really good chance you're going to get whacked.

Like, you know, what do you think? I, absolutely. And if you surf enough, you will wind up in trouble where you have to keep your mind calm and you have to keep your mind cool. Yeah. And it's very challenging. I remember one of the early times that happened to me. I was by this big long jetty in Washington with a rip. And the swell was coming in at an angle that was pushing me into the rocks.

And the rip was pulling me out to sea. And I remember thinking literally, I obviously had enough bandwidth. I remember thinking, now I know why the Greek gods considered Poseidon an angry man. Because it wasn't this feminine beautiful lagoon with crystal clear water. It was an angry, powerful man. And I also remember thinking, this ocean, I'm a nice person. This ocean doesn't care that I'm a nice guy. So, anyway.

It's just a just, just a commentary on that. I love it. The ocean is such a wonderful teacher. And it's, it's wonderful because it is unforgiving in so many ways. I had a similar. Yeah. It's the worst part about it is, okay, so there's, there's, I love, I don't do a lot of surf teaching because I'm not that good, but I'm good enough to teach a beginner lessons. But I always ask the beginner, the beginners, what's the most dangerous, especially,

if they're kids, it's fun. Okay, guys, what's the most dangerous thing in the water? And nine out of ten people will say a shark. And so, you know, we get to the point of, no, the most dangerous thing in the water is your own surfboard. And then I'll say, what's the second most dangerous thing in the water? And now some kids will still say shark. And I was like, no, that's, it's like, your buddy's surfboard. So, so we, but we have, um, where, where was I going with this, Greg? What was the lead up into that? We were talking about the ocean being unforgiving and a good teacher. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there's always an element in my life that I can, if I am thinking about a situation, that I can always take back to the oceanic environments. So it's a profound teacher that way. And where I was going with that story was the shark bites me. I don't, I'm not, I expect that the shark may think I'm food or if it's an adolescent, maybe being a little territorial and has something against me, not that it's evil, but that it has something against me, but that the water itself is indifferent and that There's a certain type of cruelty from an indifference that is even on many ways worse than malice.

But it doesn't lie. The ocean will never lie. So it's a great teacher that way. And dreams of water frequently involve subconscious and things that maybe we can't tell ourselves to ourselves come through these water dreams. So. Yeah. I think it speaks to our true nature. Like, you know, just the magnitude of the ocean is beautiful in so many ways.

And when you're, whether you're surfing or you're snorkeling on it or in it, it seems to call to us to be part of it, you know. It's interesting. How? How, I'm going to ask your riddle that I don't expect you to know. Okay. How is the endocannabinoid system like the ocean? Wow. Let me think about it for a minute.

I think it's mysterious. I think it holds the answers to people's dreams. And a lot of those dreams are at the bottom. Okay, cool, cool. I like both of these. Okay. So the system's 600 million. years old, right?

600 million years ago, Hawaii was underwater. North America was underwater. And Earth had just come out of a great ice age. And we really have the beginning of when

single-celled organisms in the ocean that got their food directly from the seawater and put their waste products right back directly out in that. They started to get together to form bodies. And so the receptor system is 600 million years old. And part of what happens evolutionarily for cells to get together to form bodies is they have to solve certain

problems, one of which is, is if we get two cells together, how are they going to communicate with each other? How are they going to talk to each other in order to cooperate? And in order to form a body, we need to have specialized cells, whether it's a sponge has slightly different cells or we have liver cells and heart muscle and we have neural tissue and we have skin. So we have to go from a sperm and an egg meeting to all these different cells. And in every aspect along the way the endocannabinoid system is involved, in order for the sperm and the egg to meet. If we block the endocannabinoid system, no babies. That ball of cells that is dividing after the sperm and the egg meet in order for it to get to the wall of the uterus of the mom

and implant and start a blood supply. If we block that, no baby. So think of that communication. The sperm and the egg to communicate require the endocannabinoid system. The ball of cells to start communicating with the mom endocannabinoid system. When the baby is born to start suckling the endocannabinoids in the mom's milk, teach our neurologic structure how to swallow properly so that we can connect with the mom and all of that bonding happens. But cellularly, there has to be a pattern process where we go from these globule of undifferentiated cells

to more specialized cells, which are called stem cells, to more differentiated cells, that whole process is endocannabinoid system. This isn't how it's like the ocean yet. We're not there. But also, all aspects of hunger and feeding, you've got to feed my, I got to feed the cell of my pinky's finger from my body. So the food has to, and the waste products have to go out. And also, if I cut my finger, the body needs to know how to detect that there's an injury

and then how to mobilize the inflammatory response and how to start the healing cascade. Endocannabinoid system is involved in all of this. And it is a communication system between the extracellular water compartment of our body and the cells. One of the terms of this compartment is called plasma, which is in our blood. And why does our blood taste like seawater? is because evolutionarily we have brought the ocean inside of us, and that seawater is still nurturing every cell in our body, and in order for those cells to communicate with each other,

they talk through seawater, the synapse between two nerves. It's a very small space, but it's a kind of a little tributary of a stream that leads to, And so this connective tissue environment is contiguous. And that's in many ways how the endocannabinoid system is like the ocean of our body. It bathes and nourishes all of ourselves. I've never heard that before. That's awesome. It makes sense.

It's back to relationships on some level and why it feels like home. Welcome home. It is. You know, oftentimes when I think about, you know, being in a flow state, whether you're surfing or being in the ocean or playing chess or whatever you're doing, do you think there's like an antithesis to the flow state? And if so, what is that? Oh, yeah. I think there's two, I think the antithesis to the flow state is normally we think of this fight or flight, right? What I'm going to do is, I'm going to, you know, my, I'm being attacked and the adrenaline circuits are activated and I'm going to swing hard or I'm going to run away. But that's not the antithesis to flow. I think that when you are so scared, you can't move and you're frozen stiff. So mental and emotional inertia, it's why from a productivity perspective, I always like to tackle my most difficult tasks of the day, first thing in the day.

first thing in the morning because they're already difficult in my mind. So I have, as I'm doing my little daily to-do list, while I have more mental bandwidth to get them done, and then that can create a positive cycle as we move through that. But inertia or self-blocking or self-sabotage, I'm trying to think of the researcher whose name is escaping me. Gay Hendricks talks about this upper limit problem of how we get only so far and we can't get to the next step, how to get to the next step, that form of a blocking blockage is opposite of flow. And it also is a sense of separateness as opposed to togetherness. it is a sense of I am not in control.

It is a sense of this is too difficult. And the time can drag on and on and on and on as opposed to. You know, it's interesting. When I think of the flow states as well and I think about learning or, you know, it seems that when we remember something, we're recreating that memory. And it seems that when we learn a skill, we're able to get back to that skill. Like that's the repetition is the mother of skill.

Is the same thing true with flow, the more comfortable you get with that state, the more familiar you are with putting yourself in that state? I think part of it is yes. I think part of it is yes. But it's also kind of like trying to go to sleep. You can't necessarily make yourself go to sleep, right? You just have to create an environment. And also, as the skill level, as your skill level increases,

the same task may not be as rewarding. It might become more of tedious aspect of it. But to be in a state where your skill level is increasing to meet the demands of the task, yes, I think that's appropriate. And that sounds, yes. Yeah. What about flow as a group, you know, whether you look at it. Oh, yeah.

Like, that's a pretty interesting concept. right? What do you know about that part? Flow is a group. Think of the jazz band. I'm not a good musician. I play flute because I'm a terrible singer. But ironically, learning to play the flute has taught me to be a better singer because I can hear when I'm in versus when I'm out. And so when the music is the focus, you are tuning into a group activity.

and you are either in resonance and rhythm or out of resonance or out of rhythm. And I'm sorry about that. I don't want to look away to turn this off. So you're either in or out of rhythm. And there's a great book. It's a little old, but it's a good book on the neurologic aspects of music activity called this is your brain on music. And playing music with other humans, which can include singing or, but the act of playing is one of the things that activates our nervous system the most. And so

we are tuning into the group. And I haven't played as much in the past year or two as I probably should, but I pick up my instrument just for a little bit every day, just to play a scale or two to keep it in my nervous system. But I remember the first time I was kind of riffing. I just mostly play folk music because it's easy and I'm not good, but that's what folk music is. And, but I was a little in over my head and there was a kind of a jazz riff going on. And it was impromptu, and I intuited the chord change.

Nobody told me about it because it wasn't planned. We were just all sitting in, kind of jamming. And there was a point in time of should I hesitate or should I go with it? And I have to tell you,

I was probably smoking weed at the time. And so I went with it. And at the exact same time, everybody played the same note and it just shifted and I was like, wow, how did I do that? Because I had never done anything like that before. So that is an element of a group activity, group dancing, sitting around, eating food, having a wonderful conversation at the dinner table or at lunch can be a flow activity.

Sports can be flow activity. Participating in a sport where you're something. or your granddaughter is in an event, and you can cheer from the sidelines and, you know, give support to them. That's part of being it in, and we all get wrapped up in it. So I think, yes, I think these flow activities can be groups. And if you look, what traditional cultures generally teach us about psychedelics is a lot of the time, it is a group experience from a traditional point of view. Yeah, it's amazing to see the contagious aspect of it. I don't know if that's the right word, but it seems that, you know, when you when you see someone in flow, a lot of the

times people admire them and they want to be around them. And some of I think that it's contagious, the same way in which you were able to intuit the next note in the band. So too do people know that the ball's coming to them for to slam it. Or you know what I mean? It's a same way in which you were able to intuit the next note in the band. You know what I mean? It's like you can feel the rhythm being passed on to you. And it's nonverbal. It's a nonverbal intelligence. Yes. So how do we talk to plants? Yes. I think that is a large part of it.

Greg, can I take just a couple moments and use the bathroom here real quickly and I'll be right back? Yeah, please. I would love to continue a little bit. I'm going to just mute this for right now. Absolutely. Yeah, handle it. I'm going to talk about flow state. So, you know, I think that there's something to be said about understanding the things that you love and just sitting with them. I think that's a great way to begin to enter a flow state. It's like, what is it that you love? And you start thinking maybe, oh, I love to serve or I love to spend time with my family or I love to read.

Now think about how you feel when you're doing the things you love. That seems to me to be a pretty good one-two punch to make. you receptive to a flow state. A lot of the times you'll find that when you begin thinking not only about the things that you love, but how you feel when you love those things, time tends to fade away. Time can either dilate or just be pushed into the background to the point where all you're doing is just being in the present moment. I think that has a lot to do with the flow state, is this idea of time. You know, have you ever been doing something where all of a sudden, you're you just lost yourself.

As someone comes in interruption, I was like, what are you doing? You're in this state, this alternative state. And for me, I think psychedelics is a great gateway to understand the awareness that brings you into a flow state. Understanding the landscape, the psychedelic landscape for me is this awe, moment of awe. So I was just telling the people about one of the ways in which I find myself able to, to enter the flow state is this one, two combination. The first is to think about what I love to do.

And the second is, how do I feel when I'm doing that thing that I love? It seems to allow time to slip away and make me presentable to the flow state. I love that. Yes, we have, I think one of the, and this is why I call myself an apprentice. One of the best ways for me to study flow is, I lost your mic there. There we go. Hang on. There we go.

Now you're back. Okay, good. So how much of that did you get? I know my mic cut out there. Yeah, I didn't catch. I don't think I caught hardly any of it. Okay. So one of the best ways for me as I study flow in my own nervous system and in my own

body is not how do I get into the flow state, but recognizing it when I come out of it. And it's so close. And then a lot of the times, it's like you just woke up from a beautiful dream and you are having such a wonderful dream and you want to get back to the dream. You want to get back to the dream. You can't always do that. But in terms of the kinesthetic state of what does it feel like, that I think is super instructive.

and in terms of getting into it, I think a lot of it is motivational and environmental. So to use the surf analogy, I know this break. Those waves look like the waves I'm looking for. I'm going to take the leap and go ahead and immerse myself in that. And then the flow state happens naturally. So if it is not water, but there is a tap. ask, an activity that I think is of appropriate difficulty for my skill, then I'm going to start engaging in that. And it's naturally pleasurable. So it's almost like we don't have to work

to get into a flow state. We're almost hardwired to be motivated to want to be in them more. One of the areas I think I find folks to be most, how to, you have to, we're inherently motivated to put ourselves into the space, but we have to make a conscious choice. This is how I'll say it. We'll make a conscious choice in our leisure activities. Am I going to do something that is passive in my leisure activity that requires no skill? and just veg out on the couch for a while, that I think can be healing if it is needed, but making a conscious choice during leisure activities, hobbies, things that are active to put ourselves into a flow environment,

as opposed to just pick back and relax. Now, if it is at work, one of the things that I will tell people for work situations is the idea of combing through a task. What do I mean by combing through is, is if it's a big project, not thinking about the project as a whole, but thinking about it as little pieces that you can go through. And I'm going to just make a 20 minute pass at this. And then doing that over and over again, that can be flow inducing for a work task or something that we may have a little bit of dread about. I don't want to think about doing my taxes. Oh, it's triggered a bunch of people, didn't I?

Don't want to think about doing my taxes. Okay, well, I'm just going to open up and just get my PDFs from my bank account and just drag them into my tax folder. And because I have anxiety about that and because it's a low amount of skill, I can get into a flow state a little bit because I'm just decreasing my anxiety. had to do it anyway and it was painless. And then, okay, on to the next step. So combing through a challenging, difficult, or anxiety provoking task. Other ways to do it is by doing it with somebody who's better than you who's already going to know how to get you in the flow, whether that be,

you know, playing a sport activity with somebody who's a little bit better than you who can encourage you to get into the flow. And also cheering others. One thing I love to do in surfing is give, I always tell people if I'm close enough what I like that they did about that ride, even if it was, you know, even if the end was in elegant, that was, they did something beautiful or elegant. And for me, if I'm at my limit and I'm paddling into a wave and I'm a little scared, I will count my strokes to myself. So I, you know, I count my paddles because over time that's taught me that, okay, I'm getting ready to get into this. And I feel that tail of the board lift. And I've just already moved myself because I, I'm able to count. So it's

kind of like a combing process. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes total sense. But just the word flow makes sense. You know, sometimes you'll see a little trickle or you'll You'll see, like, sometimes a little, if you spill something, you'll see the water begin to make its way down to the lowest spot. Like, sometimes the flow can be a trickle that leads to a torrent. And that's what I thought of when you were like, I just move these PDFs over here. Like, you start off, like, I'm just going to move this over here. Next thing you know, you got your headphones on and you did your whole taxes. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, it's fascinating to think about the way in which we can move through the different states of our live. You know, it seems like there's no attachments in flow states, too. What's your take on the relationship between flow and attachment? It's downregulated. The default mode network is downregulated. And I'm assuming that some folks in the audience are familiar with that,

but it's the network that holds a sense of self. And there are studies on meditation showing that part of 30-year meditator, skilled meditators, because meditation is a skill. And the default mode network comes down. And the psychedelic state, the default mode network comes down. And in the flow state, the default mode network comes down. So we're not as concerned about ourselves, because when we are concerned about ourselves, that's where the hesitation happens. Yeah. You know, I think as we continue to progress and move forward and continue to evolve.

I think that the flow state, as well as other states of awareness, is going to allow for profound learning curves. Like, I think you can learn a lot in a flow state and may not thoroughly know until you come out of it and you're like, oh, I just know how to do that now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, yes, and you are correct. There are other states that are very important. And so one of the things that that I think of in flow state is this subject object disappears,

but other experiences create relationship and connectivity sensations that I don't think that they are also very pleasurable and can also be part of a psychedelic experience, which I have not encountered. I'm open to psychedelics, but I have not. encountered beings or entities or what is Terence McKenna call them, self-replicating machine elves, but that relatedness or connectivity versus the decrease of a sense of subject and object. So I think there are a lot of these non-verbal states where we're very stuck in the voice in our head a lot of the times, culturally speaking. Which is why I think you mentioned group, music, dance, singing. And it's, I think, a shame that music education is not more important in, and I'm at least talking from my personal experience.

I think in kindergarten, we all sing in kindergarten. It was a lot of fun. But as we progressed through the years, it became. less and less, at least for me personally, less and less fun, because I had some poor or lesser quality music education as a kid, and I didn't get introduced to it. But it's our birthright as humans to be able to have these experiences and share them together, as well as even if it's just communing with nature out by ourselves. Yeah. It's interesting. You bring up the, The default mode network, flow state, and the subject-object relationship.

I think that it's all in the English language, the subject and object. On some level, I think the down-regulating of the default mode network allows for the observer to emerge. And that's why it's so helpful in therapy. You know, when you're not the subject of it or you're not the object of it, you're the observer who is watching without judgment, that's when you can get some real work done on yourself or in situations. And the same time, the fear is gone when you're observing because you're not in the reflexive or this way. You know what I mean? Now you're just observing, right?

Let me ask you a question then, George. Okay. How did that change your story? It makes you, it allows you to be the simultaneously the main character in the audience. And it's, oh, that is brilliant. I have never heard that before. That's brilliant. It makes sense, though, right?

Because you can make real-time changes in your life of the main character. But you can't do that if you're the subject or the object. But if you're both the audience and the main character, now you can get the author's attention. I think you might have had an original thought there. I'm going to have to Google this later. That's brilliant. Love it.

Okay, so there we go. You were in flow. You called that out of the ether, just like the plants talking to you. and then I called it out for you to reinforce that, and now you get to share that with your audience. But that is, I think, I've never heard that before. So I'll consider that to be pretty close to an original idea. I like that.

I love that. Thank you. Yeah. Well, the pleasure is all mine. I felt like this whole conversation was in the flow statement. And I really appreciate it. And it's fun to get to experience a conversation with someone. someone you admire for the first time and share it.

I feel like we're very fortunate to be in this state and be in this time alive and have all these things happening to us. And I hope more people are aware of them. But let me give you that. Let me send it back to you before we start landing the plane, before we land in the plane, is there anything else that we didn't talk about that you wanted to cover? I just wanted to get into a little flow with you, which obviously we weren't the whole time, but we were some of the time.

And that was fun. And I think that what we'll also notice as, because I can't wait to listen to this again, is that there's a type of a thematic continuity to a totally unscripted conversation. And each of us come out of it differently and in a positive way. So I thank you for that. Man, I love it. Before I let you go, where can people find you? What are you coming up and what are you excited about?

People can find me at sweetwater holistic.com. Or you can Google my name or find me through LinkedIn. And what's coming up? I love to do, I want to do more podcasts. I am doing a series of videos on flow states, which will be turned into a free course on my website. website, so stay tuned. I'm also finishing up a free course on homeostasis because I hear so many people in the cannabis world talking about benefits of cannabis and how it's a system that

helps, the endocannabinoid system helps homeostasis, but I don't hear anybody talking about what in the world is it and how does it work and what are some of its mechanisms. I am absolutely fascinated and interested in working with folks who are performance oriented. I did my undergraduate degree at Penn State. It was a psych degree looking at peak performance. And I looked at automobile assembly line mistakes in the Japanese model versus the American manufacturing model. of robots. So that's one way to fix the problem.

But how were the Japanese at that time in the late 80, in early mid-late 80s, outperforming American workers. And part of it was the team dynamic. So for folks interested in touching base, there's a free discovery call. You can click a link on my website. there. And I'm just interested in bringing these ideas into the sphere of public, because as you

said in your podcast, it is about to live a life that is worth living. And I think also it is about time for us as humanity. We are at a tipping point. I don't want to call it a point of crisis, but we are at a point where things could go many different ways and just being a part of the vector for my vision of a whole complete and healthy world. I love it. And the newsletter, what's the name of a game? Does it come out every month? The Flow State Apprentice.

And you can find that on LinkedIn. It's out every week on Thursday morning. Fantastic. Well, hang on briefly afterwards. I got a few things I wanted to chat with you about. But to everybody who was here today, I want to say thank you for hanging out with us. Go down to the show notes. Check out Dr. Jake.

Check out the newsletter. Make a discovery call. Learn about flow state, whether you're in a group or an individual or if you want to go surfing in Washington, check him out. That's all we got. Ladies and gentlemen, have a beautiful day. Aloha. Aloha.