Unfiltered Friends

How to reduce stress w/ Listentosleep

• Chris Thompson • Episode 41

Share episode
[Chris]:

session. Just to be clear, I do not mean she has passed on. I don't think much can kill her.

[Erik]:

No, producers are like that.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

Nothing kills them.

[Chris]:

No. That's good. I need her to be very resilient.

[Erik]:

Yeah.

[Chris]:

Okay. So. Yes, we're gonna get into it and I'm gonna pick your brain about quite a lot, quite a lot.

[Erik]:

Alright.

[Chris]:

Let me do a quick intro and then we'll get into it. Hello, unfiltered friends. Welcome to another episode. Today we have on Eric. He was actually one of my early guests for this later iteration of the podcast and I wanted to have him back on because I didn't think we got to. distribute the video properly and also have a lot of questions for him because he, um, he has a lot of, uh, of experience in just moving in a direction that works for you. And I feel like I'm in the throes of that sort of discussion with myself. So hello, Eric,

[Erik]:

Hello Chris.

[Chris]:

how's it going?

[Erik]:

It's going really well. It's a beautiful morning out here in California. The

[Chris]:

It

[Erik]:

sun

[Chris]:

is.

[Erik]:

is just coming up over on my head.

[Chris]:

Yes. So just to give people a little bit of a background about, like what it is that you do content creation wise, obviously listening to your beautiful gravelly voice. And it's very soothing to a lot of people. So you have a podcast where you read stories for to help people sleep.

[Erik]:

I do, yeah, it's called Listen to Sleep. And I've had that for, I just had the four year anniversary actually about

[Chris]:

Congratulations!

[Erik]:

two weeks ago. Thank you, yeah, 300 episodes.

[Chris]:

Whoa.

[Erik]:

Got.

[Chris]:

At what point did you start to realize with, like at what episode point did you start to realize that it was really starting to get traction?

[Erik]:

That's a good question. I remember distinctly going to visit Joe's family, my fiance's family in like August of that year, 2019. And while we were there, the podcast hit a thousand downloads.

[Chris]:

Oh.

[Erik]:

I was like, a thousand downloads, a thousand people have downloaded this. It's amazing.

[Chris]:

like as a whole or just an individual podcast?

[Erik]:

Just as a whole, like literally there were a thousand downloads that had happened.

[Chris]:

Oh.

[Erik]:

Um, and, and I was so excited cause I was just like, Oh, this is great. And you know, I'd had so many podcasts before I first started podcasting in like 2000 and. Two, maybe before they were actually, before there was RSS, I did webcasts for

[Chris]:

Hmm

[Erik]:

the AIDS life cycle. And then I did in 2007, I did an actual podcast for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. So this wasn't my first podcast, but it was the first one that I had ever felt like really excited about and was mine. So a thousand downloads was super exciting. And then I think it was probably about a year later when Anker. got in touch with me and they asked me if I wanted to switch platforms to them. And then I was like, oh, I guess this is kind of starting to be a big deal.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

And so that felt like I think when I switched platforms to Anchor, that felt like when I had kind of like, oh, okay, people are noticing this podcast. So yeah, I would say that's when it felt kind of successful. That's also when it started to... to pay for itself. You know, up until then, it had cost me more money than it was actually making.

[Chris]:

as it tends to do in the beginning.

[Erik]:

Yeah, right, right.

[Chris]:

But yeah, so it sounds like you picked a path that was genuine to something that you're interested in and then it just eventually started to like work out for you but regardless you were enjoying what you were doing.

[Erik]:

I was. I was.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

For me, I had started it for two reasons. One, I was not happy with what I was doing. I was in my dream job, in my dream place,

[Chris]:

Hmm

[Erik]:

and I still wasn't happy. And that actually really, like, affected me deeply. It was sort of that it was about four years ago that I had this very... deep existential crisis where I went, wait, I have done everything I wanted to do with my life. And I thought this would be like it, you know? Like you get there and you make your goals, you spend years pursuing them and then like happy, right? Like isn't that the way it's supposed to be? I'm in my 50s, I've spent my whole life doing this. I finally got what I wanted and it wasn't. any different. You

[Chris]:

This

[Erik]:

know, I'm

[Chris]:

is

[Erik]:

still

[Chris]:

four

[Erik]:

just

[Chris]:

years

[Erik]:

like,

[Chris]:

ago when this happened.

[Erik]:

this was four years ago.

[Chris]:

How old are you now?

[Erik]:

I'm 57.

[Chris]:

I think, I mean, you probably see this quite a bit on social media, especially where people are like, oh, I'm 25 and I haven't figured things out, I'm 30. I haven't figured things out, like I'm 35, I'm 41. What do you say to those people who are like, I haven't hit this goal by this age as someone

[Erik]:

Oh.

[Chris]:

who discovered what they wanted to do in their 50s?

[Erik]:

Yeah, well, actually, the story is not over yet, because I haven't, that was just the next step on discovering what I wanted to do. But what I would say to those people is that you're right on time. You know, for me, when I was in my 20s, I had, I fully had this idea that I wanted to go out there and make the world make me happy. You know, the whole nine yards, it was it was the late 80s, early 90s. So, you know, like manifesting and new age stuff and all of that was like so huge. And I'm like, this is what I'm going to do. I am going to be responsible and I am going to get out there and I'm going to make it happen.

[Chris]:

Yeah, it's so, so aggressive, aggressively,

[Erik]:

It's so

[Chris]:

aggressively

[Erik]:

aggressive.

[Chris]:

trying to find happiness in my experience tends to lead you further away from happiness.

[Erik]:

That is true. Trying to make happiness. Or I think more than that, it's trying to bottle it, or to keep it, or

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

to find a way to not have it go away again.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

And so my whole thing was, if I just make enough money, then I don't have to worry about anything else.

[Chris]:

and then

[Erik]:

And I

[Chris]:

you made

[Erik]:

saw

[Chris]:

enough

[Erik]:

that.

[Chris]:

money and then what?

[Erik]:

Well, no, I actually lost a ton of it. And

[Chris]:

Oh, I

[Erik]:

in

[Chris]:

thought

[Erik]:

my,

[Chris]:

maybe you got there.

[Erik]:

now in my 20s, I, I lost, you know, I, I tried a bunch of different businesses and things that they didn't, they didn't work out. You know, I lost $50,000 when I was like 27 on starting a business that failed.

[Chris]:

Oof.

[Erik]:

And then I had to, I bartended for five years to pay that off after that.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

But that was an MBA in life for me. It was worth that because it really set me back on my hero's journey. Instead of just going, I'm going to do this one thing, try to make money, and then it doesn't matter what I do because I'll have money. I started to look at life more deeply as I had before I got into that. 18 and I decided to become a theater major it was because I had this aunt who was very inspirational to me and she was an Oscar nominated actress she'd been in early television and Hollywood for a long time and She I went to visit her when I was 18 and she just inspired me and so I got my degree in theater And then when I graduated she said, you know, I wouldn't recommend you coming down to LA to start acting right now I would say Go out and live your life like a hero's journey and bring back what you learn to other people, to the theater, to whatever it is you want to do in life. Bring your life experience, your unique gifts back and you're too young to know what those are right now. So go out and live. And I was like, yeah, no, I'm not doing that. So I'm like, I'm moving to LA. But life had different plans for me and I ended up falling in love and we the guy fell in love with we bought a sailboat and sailed away for two years to Florida from San Francisco and All of a sudden I was on my hero's journey, right? And then when that was over that sailing trip was over that adventure was over. I was like, oh Well, that doesn't last. That's when I decided I'm gonna try and just make money and then I realized oh That's not gonna make me happy either So I went back to approaching life as a hero's journey. And that's when I really started looking at how do I live in the outside world to kind of make myself happy? How do I go out into the world and find a way to live my dreams? Well, fast forward to four years ago. I had found a way to live all my dreams. I had made the outside world work for me. But what I hadn't found was the most important part of the hero's journey. And that's why the hero leaves in the first place, which is to answer the question, who am I? I wasn't willing to look inside. I was only willing to look outside. And the hero's journey is a journey through the outside world to know in a non-conceptual deep way who we are to answer that question, who am I? And I'd been avoiding that part. And that was really what brought me to the podcast and to going, okay, part of who I am is helping others. So my next thing I do is gonna be something that's not just good for me, it's gonna be good for other people too. And that started going deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper.

[Chris]:

Yeah, I mean, like I've heard some of these things before, but I find myself, I'll just be honest with you. You know how many different times I've made a list of the things that make me happy, and then I don't know what to do with that list. Like, I think it's easy to say, like, just go do those things. And I find myself, I look at these things, like for me, nature makes me happy. Helping people makes me happy. sharing a nice restaurant with someone makes me happy. The animals make me happy. But then I don't know how to apply those things. Is it really just as simple as just go do those things? I think maybe, maybe you have some, I think maybe I struggle with it because I'm attached to some form of outcome instead of just going and having the experience. Maybe?

[Erik]:

Mm-hmm. Well, I think there's two things I hear in your question.

[Chris]:

Okay.

[Erik]:

One is the I know what things when I do them, I normally feel happy. So we tend to frame that as this makes me happy.

[Chris]:

Hmm

[Erik]:

It's the thing making me happy. When that thing happens, happy. When that thing not happen, happy. no happy. It's literally like monkey brain, you know,

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

on off one zero. Um, and that's how many of us tend to look at happiness, but really happiness is on a continuum from like, you know, like a absurd contentment to sublime joy. Right. So there's just like, there's so much involved in happiness. And when you pull that apart, the absurd contentment is always gonna be fleeting.

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

It's never gonna last. So no matter what you do, even if you were only, if your whole life was only doing those things on that list, at a certain point you'd be like, it's not gonna make you happy because... Happiness doesn't last. It's like it's a wave It crashes on the beach and then it goes back out and then it crashes on the beach And it hits you and then it's gone and hits you and then it's gone. There's no one who lives a happy all-the-time life there is however a baseline of joy and that there is anything, like a joy that there is anything that we can tap into that doesn't just come and go.

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm. Hmm.

[Erik]:

It's kind of always there. I think it's tied into our capacity to be compassionate as humans.

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

It really is, it's almost like compassion runs through us like a deep, deep underground river that doesn't exist in the same. places, our emotions, our thoughts, happiness even. And that is part of our true animal nature, our instinct. What makes us just like a bobcat or a bear or an eagle or a rat.

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

We have this instinctual operating system and we try to run it. from a mind that's going, I'm a separate person. I have all these problems. I have to do all these things. I am very busy. I am very exhausted. I am very anxious. And it's me, me. I am a separate person. What the hero's journey really teaches us, and this is like my aunt's lesson coming around full circle from, you know, 1988, is that we are not this person. The hero's journey is the oldest story we tell, and it comes about because it's from when people were first starting to live in civilization and to identify as this separate, suffering individual. And it says, no, you're not that. You're not that. For 200,000 years, there have been humans, and only for the last 10,000 have there been civilization.

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

For all that time prior. We were operating as a completely different animal on an earth that was our home that we were literally a part of.

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

And so this story, this is almost like a way of life. It's like saying, hey, this is how you do it. You go through the outside world to discover who you are. And that was the thing that made all the difference to me. And then so... About four years ago, I also started working on putting all of this together into this thing called Awaken Your Myth, which is what I'm doing now as well. I'm doing the podcast and I also have this online community and coaching journey that is taking people through this whole process I went through that my aunt started me on in 88

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

and just sharing my own experience. and

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

seeing what other people's experience of it is. And they're having the same results. They're like, oh yeah, I get it. I see where I am in all this mix and it's not up here.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

It's not in trying to fix the thoughts or the what makes me happy. It's in getting in touch with that mystery, getting deep into who am I? before thoughts, before words.

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

And that's accessible for all of us. That's not like some, you know, you don't have to sit in a cave in the Himalayas for 10 years to figure that out.

[Chris]:

Yeah, I mean, the part of the journey with you that we didn't talk about in the beginning is, is you lived your whole life, major city life, regular job stuff now, and now you live in a cabin in the mountains. Why? Why did you decide to do that?

[Erik]:

It was something I had always wanted since I was a little kid when I used

[Chris]:

You

[Erik]:

to

[Chris]:

mean you can just do the things that you want to do within

[Erik]:

No,

[Chris]:

reason?

[Erik]:

you can't really. I mean,

[Chris]:

Oh.

[Erik]:

you can't just do them, but you can head that direction and you can set your intention and then surrender to what life brings. Because there isn't, you know, this is the whole thing for me about. You know, I mean, you're on social media enough to know what this whole manifestation thing is about. Oh my god. You know, YouTube is littered with shysters who are just like,

[Chris]:

Yeah

[Erik]:

you know what? If you just think it's strong enough, if you just manifest

[Chris]:

No!

[Erik]:

it, you can have it. You

[Chris]:

I've

[Erik]:

can

[Chris]:

been

[Erik]:

have

[Chris]:

thinking

[Erik]:

it.

[Chris]:

about $2 billion for a lot of time now and guess what has not manifested?

[Erik]:

Right, right,

[Chris]:

There has to be action.

[Erik]:

right. There has to be action, but there also has to be surrender. There has to be

[Chris]:

Okay, explain

[Erik]:

a willingness.

[Chris]:

what that means.

[Erik]:

Yes.

[Chris]:

What does it mean to surrender to

[Erik]:

Yeah,

[Chris]:

what? Manifestation

[Erik]:

I will.

[Chris]:

or what is that?

[Erik]:

No, it's not surrendering to manifestation.

[Chris]:

or the outcome.

[Erik]:

It's really, here's the thing, surrender isn't really something we can do. It's

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

something that when we're asked to, we can accept. But what we can do is yield. We can yield. We can say, OK, in this moment, I am going to be with what is. I'm going to go deeply into this feeling, this situation, these thoughts, and just let them be.

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

I'm not going to try and analyze them. I'm not going to. I'm not going to try to change them. I'm going to be with what is right here in this moment and see what comes of that. See what I learn about that feeling that's under that feeling and what sensation is under that. And just get very curious about what's going on in our own bodies and our own lives.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

Instead of jumping to, I don't want this, make it go away. because that is the heart of denial. It's just, it's like denial, denial. Oh, I got something I want. Denial, denial, denial. I got something I want. And it becomes this like hamster wheel of what looks like life because it's how most people are doing it. But does it work for most people? Do you look around and go, yeah, people got it down. We're doing it right.

[Chris]:

Yeah, no.

[Erik]:

I was like, no, we're not. We're not, and I'm certainly not. You know,

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

it hurt to live like that. And I started to see another way.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

And so I started there. I started with mindfulness, which is every hero's journey starts in the ordinary world with an ordinary person. It's not like a superhero movie where somebody who, you know, was born on a different planet comes and saves us.

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

The hero's journey is a story about an ordinary person who goes out on a journey to find out who they are. And in the course of doing that, they bring a gift back to everyone else in the ordinary world. When they return, transformed. They're not the same person anymore. But why is that? It's because they accepted what life had to offer. They let the journey show them how to take it. And... They took the time to allow themselves to change and to heal, to integrate that transformation.

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

They looked at the dragon in their own mind and in their own heart, as well as the dragon that was in the cave. And that changes us. That gives us access to this instinctual operating system I'm talking about. to where life starts to be much more about the mystery of what is, and a sense of our deep involvement in that.

[Chris]:

Yeah. So it's about just, instead of trying to make things what you want it to be, you accept things as are and navigate that.

[Erik]:

Yeah, and that's where you start. It's not like a resignation kind of like, oh, I got it. Oh well,

[Chris]:

No, you

[Erik]:

things

[Chris]:

can have

[Erik]:

suck.

[Chris]:

dreams and stuff like that. But like I think I think you're kind of right. I think people get so wrapped up in the idea of what they. You are actually the one who introduced me to the phrase don't should on people. So like people are shooting on themselves, you know,

[Erik]:

Yeah,

[Chris]:

like

[Erik]:

people

[Chris]:

they are.

[Erik]:

shit all over themselves.

[Chris]:

They're saying this is how things should be. Well, that was. Hey Liz, you are in here as a guest. Only click on the pinned link at the top of the Patreon chat. Thank you. I sent out the link one time incorrectly and sometimes people

[Erik]:

Oh, it's okay.

[Chris]:

still show up.

[Erik]:

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]:

Yeah, basically people have an idea of the way life should be that they don't look at what's actually happening. They're like, it's like they're kind of off, they're like cherry picking which parts of life they would like to happen. And that's not really how life works.

[Erik]:

Well, no, I mean, it's not that because that is saying that I'm, you know, it's reinforcing your own separation from life is basically what it is. And so when that's happening, we're always trying to struggle against. Whereas when we're being with and taking that time to go, what is this right now? What is what is happening? in my life, in my world, what's happening in me. Then it starts to reveal itself as of a piece, a whole. There is just life. There isn't the past, which is haunting me, and the future, which is eluding me, and the present, which just sucks, and how do I get out of this? So in that moment of yielding, we can bring an intention. to what we would like to create, be, do. And when that intention comes from some place that's deeply authentic, that is us, now we're taking our uniqueness, our unique gifts, our kind of, our flavor of humanity, because we're all far more alike than we are different. But we are different, we're all different. And that unique flavor of you or me is what we have to give to the whole group. Hold on, the sun's coming up more. Let me see if I can move this thing up.

[Chris]:

It's okay. My mom is in a walker right now and she's dragging her walker across the roof or across the

[Erik]:

There

[Chris]:

Oh

[Erik]:

we

[Chris]:

living

[Erik]:

go.

[Chris]:

with my parents, it's so interesting But like this is this is an example like where I am right now so i'm just gonna like we talked about it briefly like off camera, but You know, the beginning of this year was like pretty much how it'd been the years before, but I had this like deep feeling of discontent because what I would find is, is I would want to go out and do things to get those life experiences. And then something in my brain would try to talk me out of it. And a lot of times that thing, you know, would win. And then I ended up in a relationship with someone who lived in another country. So that was going to cost money. So I just. up and left Colorado and I came back to my parents' house and I was saving money. And then that relationship unfortunately ended and now it's just like, I don't know what the next step is. And I put this overwhelming pressure on myself to just know, to know what the next step is. I feel like a lot of people. put so much pressure on themselves to know what the next step is instead of just allowing themselves to exist. What guidance do you have for those people?

[Erik]:

Yeah, yeah. I think two things here come. There's what we were talking about before, that kind of river of compassion that flows through us. A lot of times we connect to it more deeply for things like Clark, your dog, or your parents, or people that we love, but that same compassion can... can come back to us, for

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

us, on us. And that finding a sense of how to be compassionate with yourself, you know, cultivating a sense of compassion for your own situation, your own life, your own suffering, you know, that starts to ease the mind's grip on that incessant narrative of it's wrong, we're not doing it right, oh crap, I gotta get out of here fast, I gotta make a schedule, I gotta, you know, it's that like, ugh, that feeling, we all know what it is, right? And that comes from not being in touch with that sense of compassion for ourselves. Because when we truly have it, we're like, hey, you know, in a sense, you're still like the two-year-old kid who's just learning how to be yourself, who's dragging. all the conditioning that they got back then with them, that's all with us in different places. And when we can see that compassionately, we can go, oh, okay, this is, you know, like I'm like everybody else. I got issues and stuff and I'm suffering. And then the other part of that is impermanence. You know, like you say, we say, I want this now. What am I gonna do next? We're all gonna approach a moment in our life. where there is no next, the only thing we're going to be asked to do is to die, is to give it all up.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

And whatever you think about what you wish was next in that moment or... But I mean, any thoughts about that moment are useless. And if we don't take time now to cultivate that awareness of, okay, how would I approach that moment? Because you naturally know how to die. Like you naturally know how to live. One of my great friends on social media, is hospice nurse Julie, and she talks about this all the time.

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

That,

[Chris]:

We had her on here.

[Erik]:

yeah, and she's so great.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

That we know how to die, and I say we know how to live, too. We know how to be who we are without using this to create a mind-identified self that is just literally creating a reality that is a house of mirrors. You know, we're d- like screaming back and forth, and it just gets louder and louder and louder. And it's not like that goes away. It just becomes not the thing that is most important. And it gives a sense of who we are that doesn't involve thought, that's prior to thought, that is naturally instinctually human. And so I think that that's the answer to. 99% of our what do we do questions is to go to treat ourselves compassionately and to be with that question because that question is gonna answer itself. It's not just gonna stay there forever. Someone's gonna come into your life or you're gonna get an email or there's going to be something that happens, but you're gonna miss that if you're up here. rattling around in your mind going, oh my God, what is next? What do I do? What is this? What is this about my problem that I do to fix this?

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

You're gonna miss what life has to offer you. And so that, you know, that mindfulness of the ordinary world is where we see the call to adventure from life. And then we yield to that. instead of our fears and doubts.

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

And then that brings transformation, transformation brings courage, then there's healing to integrate all of that. And then all of a sudden we come back, we're not the same person that left. It's like you can't step into the same river twice.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

You just can't go through life as a hero's journey and stay the same. And

[Chris]:

So

[Erik]:

so much

[Chris]:

it's.

[Erik]:

of what we do in life is trying to Keep what we have. So we want to stay mostly the same, but we want to fix a few problems. And you kind of just have to let it all go and trust that most of you is going to stay the same. That's who you are.

[Chris]:

So like in the, in the process of us like scampering about and stressing out, and we kind of miss what is actually going on because of the chaos that we're almost creating for ourselves. So it sounds like being able to sit in that discomfort and just look at it instead of trying to make it what you want or panic over it. Like that's something I've always said about worry. People are like, well, are you worried? And I was like, well, is worrying about this going to help me? in any way and it does the opposite. But I think it's natural. I'm not gonna say don't worry all the time, but like do your best to get out of your own way and be kind to yourself ultimately, which I'm not good at. I've never been good at. I don't know how that happened, but maybe that's what this stage of my life is about. I'm with my family. I'm in a place where I'm safe and secure and I can rest, but rest. has not been the journey of my life. So maybe it's time to just chill out for a little bit and enjoy this time instead of always needing to achieve big things in the next step. Like if you're always looking forward, you never get to appreciate where you are.

[Erik]:

Yeah.

[Chris]:

Well, always big realizations with you. We have a couple of questions from Patreon people, if you're down to answer.

[Erik]:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I'd love

[Chris]:

Okay,

[Erik]:

to.

[Chris]:

so if you guys ever want to send questions to the guests that I have on, it's patreon.com slash unfiltered friends. Annika asks, how do you know if your intuition or higher self is speaking to you versus anxiety or fear?

[Erik]:

Hmm, that's a great question. Well, they're really talking from two different places. So I think the easiest way for me to see anxiety and fear is that it happens up here. It's all happening here. And there's a great way to quickly kind of drop down out of this place of like listening and being and get into the body closer to our instinctual operating system and that is where you're going to get in touch with your higher self, your intuition, whatever you want to call it. That non-conceptual sense of knowing where you just know it doesn't even need words. You would maybe even struggle to put words to that like, oh this is it.

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

And what happens a lot of times is we'll have that realization in our instinctual operating system and the mind will grab it immediately and go, oh yeah, I know exactly what to do with this. And whereas if we just like stay there with that instinctual feeling, that sense, it unfolds on its own in a different way. And now this doesn't come. out of nowhere, you know, that you can't expect that after a lifetime of doing it this way, it's just you can flick a switch and go to this.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

But there are practices, mindfulness practices that can move our awareness from the head to the body. One of them, it takes like two minutes. Do you wanna try it? Okay.

[Chris]:

Sure.

[Erik]:

Take a deep breath. Visualize where your sense of self is. Like in the body, sort of feel into it. Like

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

for most of us, it's like a little homunculus behind our eyes, somewhere in our head that feels like it's running the show.

[Chris]:

Hmm, not

[Erik]:

Just

[Chris]:

me.

[Erik]:

where is that for you?

[Chris]:

It's in my heart, it's in my chest.

[Erik]:

It's in your, that's where you feel like you are.

[Chris]:

That's where I feel it, yeah.

[Erik]:

Okay, good. That's a great place to start. So. Where, then let's look at this. What feels like it's in your head? Or when you have anxious thoughts, or when things are, when you're trying to solve a problem using your mind, where do you experience that?

[Chris]:

Where do I experience the thought?

[Erik]:

Where do you expect? Where do you feel it in your body?

[Chris]:

in my, like the top of my head.

[Erik]:

Top of your head, okay. So let's go there. Let's go to that place. And just feel into that sensation, what it feels like. Like where are the edges of it? How does it feel? Is it hot? Is it cool? Is it pressure? Is

[Chris]:

This

[Erik]:

it,

[Chris]:

pressure.

[Erik]:

yeah, okay.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

And so then just take that sensation, breathe into it. And imagine bringing that awareness down to your jaw. That same

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

kind of, that sense of like, What?

[Chris]:

It's tension, it's like

[Erik]:

Yeah.

[Chris]:

tension and pressure.

[Erik]:

Okay, yeah.

[Chris]:

Now my jaw kinda hurts, that's weird.

[Erik]:

Okay, okay, yeah, bring it down to your jaw. Just let it be there. Just notice that you can move it, that it's

[Chris]:

Hmm,

[Erik]:

not static.

[Chris]:

I'm in control of this.

[Erik]:

Well, no, you're not maybe necessarily, but you can allow it to kind of drift towards your center. And you're in control of keeping it where it was.

[Chris]:

Hmm

[Erik]:

When you let go of control and you just sort of set your intention to go, oh, what if we move it here? It can go to your jaw. Now, can you bring it down to your throat?

[Chris]:

Yes.

[Erik]:

Yeah. Now take a deep breath. And let it ride that breath down to your heart.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

Now you've brought that same energy right to the center of who you are, where you already said you experience your deepest self. And a lot of people haven't even had that experience of experiencing themselves in the heart.

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

But when we can take that part of us, that is that anxious, controlling, mind-identified sense of self, and bring it to our heart,

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

we can start to operate. from a heart-centered awareness that changes the texture, quality, content of our life.

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

And that simple thing we just did is something you can do any time of the day. And if you add some kind of another mindfulness practice to that, that works for you, like it could be mindful walking. It could be rock climbing. I know you like rock climbing. That was

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

my mindfulness practice for a long time. Anything that allows you to focus attention and... and to take your mind and give it a task, basically,

[Chris]:

Hmm.

[Erik]:

where it is just, you know, in that one, the mind is just going with. And following the breath, the mind is just following the breath. It's a little like putting a dog on a leash. After a while, the dog doesn't struggle on the leash anymore. And now we're not being dragged around by our mind saying, this is me, I am it. You have to listen, because the voices in your head are actually you, and we're

[Chris]:

Mmm.

[Erik]:

busy. So get with the program. Then we can go, whoop, no, actually, we live here. And thank you for your help. You're super useful sometimes. I definitely need you, mind. Thank you. But you don't run the show. And

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

then all of a sudden, life becomes a there's a different quality to it.

[Chris]:

It's like

[Erik]:

And

[Chris]:

that mindfulness like almost like releases a lot of the energy behind it. Because I think a lot of the anxiety that I have felt or that other people fear has to do with unknown.

[Erik]:

Yeah.

[Chris]:

And if you like take time to like actually inspect a lot of times the things that we stress out about aren't quite as big as we make it out to be in our minds because we allow it to be this like boogeyman. So if you put if you put some light on it and actually look at it a lot of times the energy you feel. about that thing reduces because you can identify it, you can see it, and you understand it's probably not going to kill you by and

[Erik]:

Yeah,

[Chris]:

large.

[Erik]:

right.

[Chris]:

And it helps you relax. Cause that was it. Anxiety is fear of the future and like depression is attachment to the past or something

[Erik]:

Like

[Chris]:

like that.

[Erik]:

sadness about the past,

[Chris]:

Sadness

[Erik]:

yeah.

[Chris]:

about the past. And it's like two things that you don't have control over.

[Erik]:

Mm-hmm. And I do think that sense of helplessness

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

is something that we can really feel into. Because helplessness. It's just, it's at the base of who we are. You know, there's no, and we fight against it so strongly in our culture. And it's not the totality of who we are, but the whole human mess is floating on a sea of helplessness, you know. There's just, there's very little we can do about so many things in our lives. And we don't want to look at that. But when we do, we can see kind of like you said, just there, it isn't a big boogeyman. It just is a part of the mystery of it all. And

[Chris]:

Mm-hmm.

[Erik]:

it's baked in. So, you know, you can believe that it's wrong and that somehow we need to fix it. And if we could all just hop into a machine and be, you know, keep our consciousness alive forever, then oh, problem solved. You know, humans have transcended their helplessness. I don't want that.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

I'll take the helplessness any day. I'll take that like what is any day.

[Chris]:

Yeah, it's okay to just be. It doesn't

[Erik]:

It's

[Chris]:

always

[Erik]:

okay

[Chris]:

have

[Erik]:

to

[Chris]:

to

[Erik]:

be,

[Chris]:

be.

[Erik]:

and all your answers are there in just being.

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

They don't come from someone else, they come from you, and you'll know through being, rather than like being in the future with your mind, or being in the past with your depressed

[Chris]:

I think

[Erik]:

self.

[Chris]:

we over complicate things. People are like, how do I stop feeling burnt out? And I was like, well, you got burnt out by doing too much. So if you don't wanna feel burnt out, maybe not stressing over, be feeling burnt out and doing less and allowing yourself. We're all just not good, especially millennial and older. I don't know what it is about, we're just. constantly feel like we have to be accomplishing and do these big things, blah, blah. And then you're by the end, you're just like, what am I doing? You just get to a breaking point. And I think I'm like, I'm at that point now where I'm just like, I really don't, it's not that I don't care about what other people like think or, or want or, or any of those things. Cause it's kind of part of my business to like mostly care about what other people, but now all I'm thinking about is like, what's going to fulfill me, what's going to make me happy and other people can tune in. Instead of me seeking what'll get me accepted by other people that constantly seeking of acceptance of other people.

[Erik]:

Validation is a huge thing for

[Chris]:

It just

[Erik]:

all

[Chris]:

doesn't

[Erik]:

of us. But

[Chris]:

just

[Erik]:

again,

[Chris]:

doesn't go

[Erik]:

Chris,

[Chris]:

very

[Erik]:

that

[Chris]:

far.

[Erik]:

all comes from up here.

[Chris]:

I know.

[Erik]:

It's just a part of being

[Chris]:

Cough

[Erik]:

a

[Chris]:

cough.

[Erik]:

suffering separate self

[Chris]:

Yeah.

[Erik]:

that comes with. This will, this gives me a dopamine hit that works for a little while. And

[Chris]:

Hmm

[Erik]:

it does, but it doesn't ultimately get at what's beneath that, which

[Chris]:

you get

[Erik]:

is,

[Chris]:

to the root.

[Erik]:

yeah, which is who am I? You know, who am I? And the, and we can, we can't, the good news is you can answer that question. There, there, it exists.

[Chris]:

It'll happen.

[Erik]:

It'll happen, yeah.

[Chris]:

All right, I have a lot of thinking to do. I'm going to go ride some roller coasters and process

[Erik]:

Woohoo!

[Chris]:

this. And it's interesting, like, I don't really know anybody here anymore in Illinois. And I invited my friend to go and she backed out. So I'm actually going by myself because I'm not going to allow something like that to stop me from going and experiencing joy and things that make me happy. So we're it's we're putting it into practice. It's something

[Erik]:

Wonderful.

[Chris]:

that I enjoy doing. Let's go have some fun. But if people are inspired by you and I know that they are. Where's the best place for them to reach out to you?

[Erik]:

The best place would probably be either listen to sleep.com if they're interested in the sleep podcast,

[Chris]:

Ahem.

[Erik]:

or if they're interested in more of this hero's journey stuff at awaken your myth.com. We're going to actually with the community has been closed for six weeks while we did a private cohort that went through. That's going to open up next in a week or two for membership again, if people are into, you know, working with a community of people. We're all doing this.

[Chris]:

That's awesome. Well, let's stay closer in touch. Maybe I'll come out and disappear in the mountains with you for a little bit too. That

[Erik]:

That would

[Chris]:

sounds

[Erik]:

be

[Chris]:

like

[Erik]:

great. You're

[Chris]:

fun.

[Erik]:

always welcome.

[Chris]:

But thank you for being on Unfiltered Friends. I appreciate you.

[Erik]:

Thank you, my friend. I will talk with you soon. Have a great day on those roller coasters.

[Chris]:

I will.