Convergence

On Episode 6 of Convergence, Brendan has a manifesto, Mark has another new podcast,

and we're all made of bits of the universe.

So I've been on my health stuff and

and ranting and raving about different things all the time about what works for me and what I hope works for other people.

And like really like the share, some cool things I've learned about healing my own body.

And there was a time where you gave me the the boundary.

You're like, okay, I don't really want to hear any more of that stuff as it pertains to me.

Like I'm happy to hear it for you. That's great.

And so I guess I wanted to check if that boundary is still there.

Or if you're open, if you're open to talking about stuff.

And it's completely cool if it is still there.

And I just, I was just just checking without actually trying to cross it yet.

I think I'm on something of a kick at the moment where I'm feeling the discomfort and doing it anyway.

So with the, the, why universe?

Why does the universe keep doing these things to me?

Loving you because we just, well,

just a minute literally a minute before we jumped on, I just got a bunch of food ordered for after we've.

Okay, what have you got with me Brendan?

Okay, so let me let me just, I don't know it.

I, it's not about what you do.

So yes, the universe, um, well, a couple of things I've been finding this week where I find those moments of discomfort.

And I think, okay, part of my work, I wanted to be about helping people move through that.

So it's about noticing those triggers and noticing what gets you feeling itky and pushing through that and being like, okay, this makes me feel itky.

But I'm gonna, I'm gonna try it out anyway.

So I'm proud of you for, for, for that for allowing me to, to do my, my own weird thing.

Um, I don't, I don't have any, like suggestions or answers or even, maybe, maybe a challenge, maybe.

But on last week's episode, you, you mentioned something about mystery pains that you're kind of just taking ibuprofen for.

And, um, like, you know, ibuprofen is your friend, it was working working really well for you.

And, and you, you had mentioned the heart, like, as the, as a concern for it, you had mentioned the, the possible heart scare stuff.

Honestly, I, that, that didn't even cross my mind.

Either didn't know about it or forgotten about it.

I was thinking more of the microbiome issue because the microbiome is super, like, you know, the science is learning more and more about how important

the microbiome is for you and keeping that regulated.

And, um, but then even more than that in my mind, I'm thinking, if you have a pain, that's your body giving you a signal that something is wrong.

Something you're doing, something that's happened to you, something isn't what your body likes.

And it's trying to tell you, it's trying to alert you to do, do the opposite.

The way that I see Western society is that we, we take a pill to numb some sort of sensor, some sort of alert mechanism within our body and we keep numbing it and we keep numbing it.

And then we, we end up with it some disease that we're like, how in the world did I get this?

This came out of nowhere when it didn't, we've been ignoring the science the whole time.

The same is true. I think we can, we can view that from a technical perspective as well because I've, I used to preach this whole thing about, I'm going to second a very different direction and but it's related.

In that, a lot of my work used to be with the word press system, so if you've ever run a blog, you might use WordPress.

And you want to make it do a thing and so you download a plugin and then that plugin doesn't quite work with the theme that you've got and so what you end up doing is you add another plugin.

And that doesn't quite do this and so you end up papering over with this, you end up with this,

Djengatower that is so delicate, they were like, no, don't update that plugin or if you do, you've got a update in this order because that thing is time to that thing and if that thing breaks in the whole website goes down and it doesn't tell us why.

So I am one, I, you find no disagreement from me so far.

And, and honestly, that's kind of the extent of what I wanted to bring up. I just wanted to say, yeah, yeah, I, I, I just hate the idea of my friend, you know, silencing as alarm system when there might be something to it and there might be like it could be it could be a food intolerance or allergy, it could be just stretching in a weird way and then now it's kind of,

it's done something that needs to be, it needs some physical therapy, it needs, I don't know, something, and you know, I would hope that that would be a priority.

And that's not wrong, I was trying to invent a better word, but like, you know, it's a non-iby-profound, yes, to put it in some context, I take ibuprofen once or twice a month.

Oh, okay, okay, I got the impression it was like, one idea or something, you know, like, my dad's no, this is not a chronic, that's great, no, no, no, yeah, this is, I'd be pro-fine is, I haven't got time to deal with this right now, yes, I know the body, I have not got time to listen right now, I just need to get on with my day.

Yeah, yeah, okay, that's great, and that's more than a couple of days of that, you're like, okay, what's happening here? This is every day, now we start to, yeah, now we start to ask some questions, yeah, I am not a fan of

papering over a thing with drugs and just letting it move on. Yeah, I think I made a comment, I can't remember if it was last week or the week before, which I, it's where I thought we were going to go in terms of

things that I'm changing about my life and the world, in something of a gauntlet and I have to be able to run one bit of the gauntlet before I can run the next one, I can't do too many things at the same time. And so, I mean, you know, this week, it was wonderful because, you know, things things happen, your body is ready to tell you when it wants things.

And I went on a big walk, 14,000 steps on the along my canal on Tuesday and I used to do this every week and it was great, it was great.

And I'm looking forward to doing it more and more and more. And if I could swing it, I'd be ambitious to say, I wish I could do it every day, but certainly more than once a week.

And so yeah, like, but you know, to funny, you know, I sit here now and the cold weather's really creeping in and as you were talking early, I felt that little twinge in my, you know, the shoulder where I've, you know, I've got this thing. Hey, you're talking about me.

Yeah, yeah, hello. And I would, you know, yes, and it would be great to fix that, but also, and this is this is sounding defensive and perhaps it is until I will rain it back.

Well, actually, funny enough, it's one of those things I've, it's been on my to-do list for so long that it's just like just do it.

I've got to change my GP surgery because I've used the same GP surgery for 20 something years, probably 30 years.

And I've moved twice or three times since then, and I've still kept the same surgery. It's now a bit closer to me than it used to be, but there's one that's just down the road.

And all I've got to do is walk up, walk in there and get and put my passport down and say, sign me up.

And then I want to get, you know, I don't know if they do like a health check thing. They might do, and I'm terrified of that, but it would also be a good idea to have a couple of things looked like the blood pressure blood pressure and all that kind of stuff because it runs in the family.

So GP GP surgery, I think, to GP, I'm thinking general practitioner.

Yes.

Okay, and then surgery, to me, that means cutting you open. So I'm assuming cutting you open. Yeah, surgery just would be the, you know, the, the little office.

Yeah, yeah, and I, it's just just taking a look.

Just taking a look at the surgery for 20 years. What, um, yeah.

And it's like, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's coming up way in a more dreadful sense in, you know, in a sense of like, oh, come on,

stay, man, you've got to do the thing now and it's all very, uh, whereas it's starting to feel more like all these bits are starting to stack up quite nicely, you know, and they're sort of aligning.

And it's just like, this is the next piece that's going to align and it'll get there. And a big theme certainly this week, and I think really of the last few weeks has been stop pushing.

Stop pushing and just listen and see what comes up and stop, you know, with the shudds and the expectations and I'm paying for that now, because I've put off a couple of things that I probably should have done earlier in the week, but that's fine.

That's my responsibility, you know, that's, that's personal responsibility and we take it.

But ultimately, very much taking this signal on of like, I've spent so much of my life living in the land of the shudds.

And in just little subtle ways, it's not completely going away, but in little subtle ways, I'm finding push at this point what happens if I don't and try and squeeze and just go.

And I'm not so welcome. And it does.

Or the question becomes relevant and you move. Yeah, I've had I've had a couple great instances lately where I procrastinated so much that it no longer mattered.

That is such a glorious feeling. I'm just going to put this off a little bit longer. Oh, now it never had it never had to be done. So I'm so glad I didn't waste time on it. Oh, man, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't have a very often, but when it does, God that feels good.

Yeah, I had I was doing a project where the, we were doing a basement remodel and the city to get the permits wanted me to do a site plan, which is walking the entire perimeter of property, not just the basement.

Marking out the elevation where all the trees are the where the where the property sit, where the house sits on the property in the driveways and a bunch of stuff that is completely irrelevant to this tiny basement remodel that we're doing all on the inside.

It doesn't go outside. There's no windows. It doesn't even affect anything outside.

I really don't want to do this and it's just like so I just kind of waited and waited and waited and then the client had to postpone the project and so it can't even, it wouldn't matter.

But it's like they had some help problems and so they had to just put it all off. It was really great.

One more question about health stuff and more like the system. So you got the, you got the NHS and things are kind of, it seems like pretty set like you got your path forward.

I was curious if you have natural paths in the UK. If you have alternative medicine, if you have people that are looking for them.

There will be places and there is a shop, a chain of shops here called Holland and Barrett who sell all of the herbal supplements and stuff. So it's very commoditized, but there are all.

So there's a little bit of CBD stuff as well. And there will be natural practitioners and stuff like that available. And yeah, how much of that is prescribable is it to be seen.

I don't think there's a lot of it. But it is the kind of stuff that people talk a little bit more about.

It's not good to know. Yeah, I've always liked it for my own health. I tried to steer that way because I felt like the Western medicine side of things likes to tackle symptoms.

And the natural medicine likes to tackle the problem that's causing the symptoms so that the symptoms go away.

Eventually, and I've found finally through my five miles of journey that that's actually starting to work for me. And I feel like I've actually fixed some root causes and it's pretty great.

Western medicine didn't care about the mold that was in my sciences.

The guy that is I was looking after work with as a client earlier in the year that I'm now.

I have been thinking more that I would like to work with him.

I don't know if it will be next year because it'll be finance dependent and time dependent and stuff.

But he's a sort of, I wouldn't necessarily use the word holistic because that I've when I've done, when I've done dive into that before.

There is some murky and unpleasant waters. You start, you can start getting into the world of if you've got autism during bleach.

Which gets pulled into this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is a nasty side to what is called holistic.

And I know that's not the real deal.

But it was just as someone called John Syrie Q. So my put it in name space pollution.

It's just, you know, it's not the thing.

But he is someone who is about sort of mind.

Well, his podcast because that'll help me get to get the three points is mindset, mood and movement.

And so he's very much about the same kind of idea.

Get it the root causes probably more from a mental and emotional and movement physical side than necessarily a supplement law, you know,

Hubble remedy type side, but all very much.

We have to move away from let's subscribe. Let's prescribe our way out of an issue.

I don't know if this is different for the NHS, but I think the motivations lead to the same issues.

In the in the states, my understanding is it's very lucrative for doctors to prescribe things because of the way the reps work.

And that's a whole industry.

I don't think we have that here, but what I think we have, which leads to the same issue is it's just easier.

It just gets people off the books and that's why they prescribe stuff.

It's not necessarily that it's being forced, although again, I might be wrong about that.

It feels like it's more the doctors are just like we are so slammed.

We get so little time with our patients.

It's such a small window of time. They actually get to see their patients and really find out what's wrong.

That, you know, what, when we've got to clear the way, in terms of what we've got to do, we've got to do, we've got to meet our targets and being able to prescribe.

Not irresponsibly, but, and I'm not suggesting they do, but that feels like.

And there are also other things that they, they're very evidence-based.

And so they will move away from some of the other stuff because they don't have the right data for it.

And they want to prescribe certain things like CBD, not CBD, cognitive behavioral therapy and stuff that is very evidence-based rather than general talking therapy.

Because they don't have, they can't match the numbers up.

And so it's very much what's going to get them out the door the quickest from a systemic point of view, not from what the individual doctors want to do because they want to help people.

And I'm sure that's the case in America. I don't think it's unique.

They just just bridge doctors with a help people, but yeah, definitely not.

But yeah, there are also cut up in the system of money, like you said.

Like it's so, it's so pushed on them so hard it seems to sell sell sell these pills.

So one other little tiny thing of follow-up or in a different topic, you mentioned a little bedtime game that you played with yourself.

Or if you were gifted a million pounds and had to do it some sort of charity thing with it.

And you thought of this perfect book that reminded me later on upon reflection.

It reminded me of I actually have kind of written a manifesto, but I've started one about about health and about like a guide to living and being a good person and like interacting with other people well.

I should share it with you and see what you think maybe we can, maybe we can hammer it out or something.

It actually came from the fight I had with my sister that I alluded to last week.

She said a boundary.

I wouldn't say I reacted poorly, but I had feelings.

I was really sad and scared about her setting this boundary.

And so then I sent her a three hour video.

We used an app called Polo, Marco Polo to send video chats to each other.

And I just turned it on and started talking to her because I was kind of, I was like, at the beginning I was like, hey, you know, trigger warning.

I might cross that boundary you sent.

So if you don't want to hear that, don't listen.

And then it's proceeded to talk like maybe it was the last time I was ever going to talk to my sister.

Because that was kind of how it felt when she set the boundary.

And I said a whole bunch of things and I don't believe she ever listened to it because it turned out to be three hours and that's massive.

And I believe on her side, she also kind of used that as a justification to feel like I was going, I was going off the deep end and being above and beyond and weird and stuff and sure.

You know, if you don't hear the context of what I said, which is a bunch of I love to use, I don't want this to break the support.

Then you could, you know, anyway, it's not important.

After words, she kind of gave me the silent treatment and some distance.

And so I started taking notes and I started like really hammering down what the issues are between us.

And then I read it back to my, you know, I edited it to a whole bunch of night, I had the honing it down and stuff.

And then I read it in it with different eyes and I was like, I could just take out a few references to my sister in this that are like just specific to her.

And then this is kind of universal, like just good guidance.

And so then I was like, I think I wrote a manifesto.

So yeah, I'll share it with you and then maybe next week we're going to check back in on it and see if you think it's um, if you think it's just kind of hogwash or if you think it's something that we should that should be worked on.

Would you not be prepared to read it out to us today?

Oh, I think it might be, I think it might be a little bit, but I'd love to. Let me see if I have a good edit of it.

Because when I think manifesto, I guess I'm thinking in terms of sort of bullet points, you know, these are the things we believe, but it sounds like you've got something a bit more comprehensive.

Um, yeah, it's a bit more comprehensive, it's kind of like a short book.

Right, okay.

It, uh, then I shall look for what it actually, it has a table of contents.

Right.

So, um, I, yeah, here's, here's the first paragraph and I haven't read, I haven't pre read this, so I don't know it.

It says, I would like to invite an opportunity for you to forgive yourself for anything that has that has happened to this point.

You don't need to wait for someone else to forgive you.

The forgiveness has always been within yourself.

Fear to love, from fear to love.

Evolve from fear to love.

Let your fear be surrounded by this love.

Just like a good start and point for life, doesn't it?

I'd like to think so.

I remember being really proud of it whenever I read it. Let's see.

This was, uh, this was an April ever at this time.

What that, what that really, maybe think then is, the something about honesty and truthfulness and,

I don't want to use the word authenticity because it's starting to get that word feels like it's starting to get.

Kind of in our public.

Yeah, it's just over, you know, overused and, yeah, a little bit sort of, um, Disney-fied.

It's like Coca-Cola, like, what do you mean?

But there is something, when you write something that feels that true to you,

it's like pride kind of comes with it.

And it is already, it doesn't need editing.

It is already in its best form because it is a true expression of how you feel.

Um, like, it's already what it should be because it's true.

Um, however, you know, however that might sound, um,

more and more in my life, I'm going to end up talking like a guru.

And then I'm going to try and stop having to pour salt all over it and actually just let it sit.

And if someone wants to call me out on it, that's fine.

Yeah, you don't need to pre-car your stuff out.

No, I don't need to, you know, it's absolutely.

There's nothing to call out.

It's just, it's just wisdom.

It's just gold.

I might take my own advice then.

And, um, yes, because it comes from a true place and therefore it is already perfect.

I feel like we are becoming closer and closer to doing similar work from

slightly different perspectives in that you laid out in the first episode of this,

what you want to do as a dream of being a shaman.

He and helping people heal an idea struck me and it's still kind of,

it's up to Belle Rang on Tuesday and it's still echoing.

I'm just going to bask in that for a moment.

Ah, I'm warming my hands by the light of my own fire.

Um, my god, I'm just all the tough erisms of this.

It's really good.

On point.

And I'm so excited for this time with this stuff.

With the stuff you've been starting and the things you've been saying,

I listen to a moment of event and you're walking straight up a set.

And I'm so excited to hear where this is going and how this is coming out.

I'm, I'm all for it.

So we talked, we've talked for a while that I've had this sort of sense that I knew there was something.

There's been something, there's been a whisper around what I'm going to do,

what I can do, what is my, what is my work to do?

And it was around creativity and helping with creative expression.

And it's, it's becoming ever more clear and perhaps clear in now than it,

well, certainly clear in now than it has done.

And even after a conversation I had today, it's like it's keeps sharpening its focus.

And so I sort of have two paths that are kind of the same route really.

In that we've talked about manifestation, we've talked about sort of therapeutic, you know,

therapy, I've been learning more about positive psychology, I'm learning more about the any

a gram and I've done my time with attachment theory and so much of what I understand is that it is all,

these are all different lenses on the same thing.

They're all different ways of looking at the same thing.

Just as, you know, we can look at Western medicine versus Eastern medicine or traditional herbal medicine or, you know,

other healing practices, it's all the same, not, it's not that it's all the same,

but it's all to try and do the same thing, come and go, come and go, thank you.

And I was really taking this idea on Tuesday of, so it's going to come from a big walk,

what would it look like if creativity was one of those lenses or creative expression?

As a way of getting you from your current state to where you want to be from your

lover pupil, pupil, pupil, state pupil to the butterfly that you're going to be.

And for some, that's therapy for some, it's spiritualism for some, you know,

let's research all these other things. And I, I was really interested in, if, if we're building a bridge,

you know, can the, the slats of that bridge be made out of ways that we can express

ourselves, stories, songs, poems, dances, illustrations, cartoons, films, clothing, all these different ways that we can express ourselves,

to get to where we want to be. And so that was one part of it. And then what occurred to me today is thinking,

okay, so that's, that's one, that's one aspect. The other aspect is just reconnecting with that part of our cells,

that many of us lost touch with. I think you and I, I mean, I'm, I'm dancing with it like crazy at a moment.

And I know you've, you've been dancing with it. And lots of people have forgotten that part of them exist.

And how beautiful would it be purely in an end to an end in, in, in, in, in, in, in of itself.

That's a bad phrase, but, you know, purely for it's own sake to help people reconnect with that part of themselves.

To, you know, I think of it as the spark, and I, I properly saw in my mind as often doing, I ended up with a sort of really empathizing as I, again, as I can do that being one of my,

my superpowers is this sort of hyper empathy, even for things that don't exist.

Or only notionally exist, I could really empathize with this spark that lives within us, maybe, you know, maybe, and all,

slightly older person, maybe a bit more whizmed. And it's, it's kind of, I just see it,

quivering in a corner, feeling alone and all it wants to do is help you and work with you and dance with you.

And that's, that's all it's motivation is. It's so completely purely once, nothing else other than to help, but it's been something allowed to.

And it's just, you know, it just lives there and it's, and so what can we do, what, how can we start by ruffling it hair and just acknowledging, oh, hey, I see you.

I, I lost sight of you for, for years, and maybe there's all sorts of different reasons, maybe we were told,

as, as, you know, when we were younger, you're not creative, you're, that's not what your thing is, you're intellectual or you're, whatever,

you can't sing, oh, god, no, don't sing, no, no, don't sing.

You know, or, or, fine, you've got those things, you've got those gifts, but what, what you practical uses that go, you've got a shot, you know, you've got to run the family shop, like,

get, come on, or you're going to go to university and you're going to do these things. This is the life that's laid out for you.

This is what you're allowed to do. This is what we have time for. We don't have time for you to write your songs or to write your poems.

And that little spark doesn't get fed, and I think I love this notion that we can, though that I can help, like I said, just like,

ruffle it here to begin with, and then bring it to its feet and start very slowly to dance, you know, and if we see that as a creature that we can nurture, and we can, and, and, and, you know, by trying and playing,

but I do playing at lots of different things, like, as I was chatting with my friend earlier today, I was thinking, I don't dance really. I don't really like to dance. I don't really like to move my body in that kind of way, because I have a sense, you know, I told myself that I was clumsy or that I am clumsy and I'm uncordinated.

So, what does that mean? That means I can express myself physically in another way. I could do something that's more gesture, like, deaf, deaf and gestures, like, shorards, you know, rather than trying to be more fluid, because if I don't feel fluid, there's another way I can move my body.

So it doesn't restrict me. And so I love the idea of taking each one of these, you know, taking a set of different creative expressions or forms and giving people the opportunity to play with them for a bit and see which ones fit and which ones, you know, resonate with them and slowly, they can bring this spark to its feet and start properly dancing with it and see what comes out.

And it might not be about achieving your ultimate form. It might just be about a bit of self-actualization and just, you know, feeling more fulfilled and yeah, I love that dude.

When you described it as like all these different paths are just the, the avenues that resonate for a certain person to be able to find their way to working on themselves.

Is that's really self work, self self actualization, self expression, knowing yourself and being able to accept it. This is kind of the goal, right? This is what we're working towards.

And yeah, when you, when you express that creativity could be that for somebody, it doesn't have to be.

And these are the things like they're all just great methods, but we can take the lessons that we learned from all those methods and do it through creativity.

I know you don't like hearing Mark as a verb, but like that's just so Mark that's so beautifully Mark it's so it's like, oh, you can noun me that's fine, you've nouned me, oh, no, no, no, yeah, just above.

And it's not just like that it only applies to you, but it's so beautifully you, your method of bringing that to other people because like that's been, you, you connecting with other people has been something that's obviously driven you, like constantly for years and years.

And you have this desire to also help people not just connect with them and, man, I'm just so excited to see what you do in this space.

Yeah, some sort of some sort of, yeah, TBM of your own. Yeah, I'm not saying creativity as the, yeah, on one hand there was like, yeah, the, you know, the first thing I did was when this idea started forming this sort of first idea was like,

I just stopped where I was walking up my phone out and was like described this little group program because yeah, that's sort of how it felt, you know, having having done one or two guided 12 week whatever programs get a bunch of people together and and go through this journey.

That sort of how yeah, what that felt like. But then there's this other part which could be done as a group or could be done alone or you know, what one on one, which is that the deeply personal stuff of how do we help you get some, you know, maybe get some emotions that have been rattling around.

And you've never allowed yourself a different way of expressing them.

I was again talking to my friend just before this call and saying, I'm doing so much right now.

I've got so much output, but for the first time ever it all feels so completely aligned and not too much at all like it all feels right.

We do this in the morning I do my Friday news letter, which I write in under an hour and I get it sent out and I'm also facilitating a group where other people do the same thing.

And then every morning now I'm doing my little 10 15 minute morning podcast and then I've got the eightes that have happened with my friend, and yeah, and yes, and yeah, I'm sorry, and yeah, I didn't forget your name is just you know she knows.

And and and then I'm working with like working with the social media manager because there's so much stuff and I want to make sure that it, you know, that it is found by people without me having to worry about it because that's the thing that is the kiss of death for me.

And you know, and then recording it all videos and just it all just feels it all just feels right and and like skiing downhill it's wonderful.

Yeah, well, I have I have something kind of fun coming up that I don't think I really talked to you about.

And on on what we did talk about though the the the the car accident last week.

Yesterday as I was going to acupuncture to help treat because my mind needs still hurting pretty bad and and other stuff.

You're not going to believe this but another person hit me.

Luckily this time was way slower it was just an up I was in a parking lot and so we were like in you going like 10 miles an hour whatever but.

And it was like it was a replay of the other accident in the in the they didn't hit me in exact the same spot and this was on my truck instead of in the car because cars total but.

They came at me from the same side and like I saw that I could clearly see them they just rolled through a stop sign and I had I had no stop sign like they were entering the road that I was on from a parking lot and.

And I was always already going slow and like watching my right side because of the trauma of that and then this woman just she's she's you know I talked to it later she's like distracted because her husband's got this.

issue gang Green in his pancreas or something like that, and like, it's been-- you know, she's totally,

overwhelmed by her life, and it's raining super overcast and dark. It's-- everything is gray.

She just couldn't see-- also, I think, in the front of a card, you got the, the posts on

either side that are holding up the windshield, the posts between the door and the windshield. It's

a, a pillar or something like that. I think I was completely in her blind spot behind that as well.

As she's turning left onto the road and she just couldn't see me, and, but she was going slow,

maybe it's 10 miles in there or whatever, and then she just bonks right into the front. And I'm like,

I'm-- I see her coming. I'm fully stopped. I'm honking on my horn. She's like, doesn't-- is-- is-- is

checked out. And it says-- but then I was like, just rattled after her. There was no pain, no, no injuries,

on either side, but it was just like, again, oh my God. What was the conversation as you both

cut out your cause? Honestly, I didn't speak much. I felt-- I was trying-- I have a lot of

understanding for other people in there. Like, I could see-- she was--

Yeah, she's not here, she's-- yeah, she's definitely not a villain. She didn't do it on purpose.

It was just-- she couldn't see me and super distracted. But I was in this place where I'm like,

okay, I'm not mad at you. But like, I'm overwhelmed. I'm-- I'm rattle. Like, this is just like,

I just wanted to be-- I just wanted to go drop off my nasal test at the post office and get that,

you know, the obligation taken care of. I didn't want another gyco claim. I didn't want to do

the handle. And so, and I saw that it was somebody else sitting in their car, so I walked over to see

if they'd witnessed it and they're like, no, I was just on my lunch, I didn't see it. And

and so, you know, we exchanged our information. And she was really nice about it, really apologetic

and everything. And I was trying to do my best. For me, as a nine, as a people pleaser, as just me or whatever.

I want to, you know, quail everybody's fears. I'm like, oh, it's all right. You know, it's just fine.

Everything's fine. But like, also, it's not like you just hit my car. And I don't want to say that.

Like, you know, like, I know it's not recorded, but it's also like not. So I'm, I was like, doing this dance

when I'm, I just, I just can't say anything right now. I just, I, I, I, I, I'm okay. I didn't get hurt.

We'll just have the, we'll have the, the people that we pay to deal with this deal with this. And

that'll be that, but it was just, um, so, so then I got to my acupuncture appointment and I was like,

yeah, so I just had another car accident and I'm like, what? Um, anyways. But what, what's actually,

fun that's coming up. I'm fun. I'm not in about fun. Um, I have signed myself up for

probably one of the biggest challenges I will put myself through in, in memory.

And I, you know, I'm, I'm pretty talkative here on this podcast, but I'm typically pretty quiet. I'm not,

I'm not a super talkative person. I usually, it's sitting the background and wait for somebody to talk

to me or, or that kind of thing. And this, you know, I know I'm supposed to be half the conversation.

So I try to do my part. And I'm, I'm also really excited to talk with you about all this stuff. This is

super fun. But if sign myself up for a three day silent retreat and what this, what this

consists of is, you know, is obviously you, you don't bring your phone. There's no books. You just

know, input, there's no output. You don't speak. You don't, there'll be other people there. This

probably going to be 20 to 40 other people that I have no idea, but that's, that's kind of what I

assume based on the size of the retreat center. And you, you don't make conversation. You actually

don't even make eye contact. You're kind of doing a group activity by yourself or you're doing a

a solo activity in a group. One of those two. And there'll be a, there'll be a Dharma talk

once in the, in the morning or the evening, I think. But otherwise you, you eat all your meals

in, in quiet, you meditate all day. You do some walking meditations around the property,

and you just don't speak, don't connect with anybody. And I've had some, I've had some friends

that have done this, and it's been incredibly challenging for them and also very productive. I'll say,

like, it's been eye opening. And it brings things out of your mind and your heart and your body and your

spirit that get, that, that get, I'd be proficient, you know, that get kind of numbed by our just daily

existence where we're talking and thinking and producing and inputting. And we don't have this time

to really listen for a long time. And I know this, like, from, from what I was just saying about how

I don't usually speak, I wait until somebody like talks to me, like if I'm in a group or whatever,

I'm not, I'm not the social light. I'm more of an introvert. And even when a conversation does come

around to me, sometimes it'll take me a long time to think of what to say or to really get out the

thought that I have. And I could see the same being the case for my body and my spirit, you know,

it might take a while for it to tell me exactly what it's thinking or what it's wanting or, you know,

if I, if I, I kind of watch a show every night, that's, that's distracting me from being able to

actually sit and listen to myself. Yeah, what a wonderful opportunity for some, some introspection and some

really connecting with yourself. And yeah, taking that time to have no input, no stimulus of any kind.

Yeah, yes indeed. Oh, I mean, yeah, that will, I guess there will be stimulus in nature. Yeah,

yeah, I'll be, I'll be able to walk around the property and I'll do some, I'll do a lot of pacing.

I'll definitely do a lot of walking, I think. I'm, I, well, depending on how, how well my

knee feels. By that time, I don't know how much sitting in one position I will enjoy. But, um,

yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be really exciting. I've got to, I told my friend about it,

who's, who's done a few of them. He actually lived in a cave in India for a while as he was going

through one of his spiritual and health journeys. And that was like, it was like four miles from

the Dalai Lama's palace in India. Yeah, yeah, I kind of wonder, like, what kind of vibe

see picked up from being that proximity, you know, that'd be, that'd be pretty amazing. And he's,

he's really excited for me. So, oh, I, um, yeah, I look forward to hearing what happens and what

what comes out of it and yeah, I imagine you go, you gotta go through like a real moment of just like,

it all must be quite a lot. And I imagine there's quite a lot that you want to, to express because

you're probably feeling so much and then after a while, I assume it's just like that all bubbles up

and then probably just kind of dissipates. Um, wow, yeah, I can't wait to hear about it.

I've been doing meditation a lot since about 2013. That's when I really started my meditation practice.

And typically, you know, typically do about 30 minutes a day. I'd say on average five days a week

since then. And this has been times when it's been much more dedicated, it's been times when I haven't

been able to find a time for it. And I'd say in the longest I've ever been able to

meditate or have some sort of silent, introspection is probably about an hour, 15 somewhere around there.

And then, you know, I'm pretty anxious to get some input. I'm pretty anxious to fill.

I'm like, okay, I feel like my cup is empty now. Let's fill it up with something to occupy me.

So this is like the whole thing that you used to say about batteries where you, you know,

you charge them to 80% and then you charge them to 100% and then you're supposed to let them completely

drain all the way out and then charge them back up again. That's sort of what that sounds like really.

It does. It is like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I often do a meditation that's either like with a

guided meditation with sounds or just with music that has an earlierics. And and I like that

because then I can move like, it's hard for me to actually just sit still. My body doesn't really

like get a lot of pains in my body if I just sit still. And so oftentimes even if I don't have

music, I've got this kind of sway and and move a bit as I meditating. But yeah, so this will be

an extreme jump into the deep end of, um, and it's not, it's not the longest, you know,

I could have done a seven day sound retreating whatever, but this one was, yeah, I think someone

I know is going on one recently. Oh, wow. Yeah. And how was it for them? I haven't spoken to them.

I'll run a camera. So I actually don't know. Yeah. So I know that there's this bigger things to jump

into. But this one is being done by a support group that I that I go with here in Portland called

the refuge recovery. It's like an addiction recovery, alternate to AA. And it's, um, it's not just

important. It's like nationwide and elsewhere, but they, um, they're they're hosting the retreat.

And so it's going to be with some people that I know and kind of like the the author of the book

that refuge recovery follows. It's like a Buddhist path to addiction recovery. He's going to be

the the Dharma speaker. And so I'm pretty interested in hearing what he has to say because his book is really

great. So, um, yeah. So that's, that's what's coming up for me. I'm pretty excited about it.

This puts me mind of something I came up against or across. I think it's probably last year,

which is the 12 hour walk. Well, um, yeah. And it is, it's literally, as it sounds, is that you,

your, your lace shoes up in the morning and you just walk. Um, and you, you know, you pack a bag

and that's it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I don't know if there are any restrictions in that,

you know, you're not supposed to wear headphones or have any input. But I think it is, it is much

more about spending that that time purposefully with yourself. Um, and yeah, it's the people

of have come back with with all sorts of things. And I think that's something that I think I wouldn't

mind doing because I can, I can walk. I mean, I, uh, the most I've done is probably got as a kid.

We just had like a six hour walk. Um, it wasn't meant to be, but we got lost up a mountain.

Couldn't have taken it. Wow. It is a long life. That is a long year. And I've done,

like a couple years ago, I did three and a half hour walk along the Cornish coastline. Um,

and that was, uh, that was, that was really, that was really special. Um, that's the first time I

had done it on my own. I've done it before with with family. Um, I mean, just the first time

I did it on my own and that felt quite significant. Um, and there's even a moment at the end that

felt like a pilgrimage because everybody's walking to this fishing village called Padstone. Um,

and I remember getting to this bit that I'd sort of recognized and gone, oh, I think I,

yes, I recognize this bit. Um, there's this cross here that was a bit of a landmark. And then you start

to see one person and then you walk a bit further and you see another person and then you start to

see them all converge on this path. And it was beautiful. It was just, it really, you know, it was like

everybody had been doing the same, the same pilgrimage. I mean, they hadn't, you know, a bunch of people

had probably just rocked up from the car park. But it was just the fact that they all started to

stream in after I'd done this, you know, this walk that was sort of proving to myself that I

could not, not so much for the physical exertion, but the, you know, not getting lost of it, you know,

like kind of stuff. Um, yeah, it was, it was really special. So, uh, yeah, I, I heard about this

this 12 hour walk and watched the video and read all the literature and stuff and I thought,

did I have something I wouldn't mind having a little, yeah, a little flirt with.

I'm going with, yeah, that's amazing. When Margaret and I visited your wonderful country,

we, uh, we walked a lot, definitely did not get to 12 hours of walking. Margaret may have gotten

that close to that. She, uh, she would be able to go on longer walks than I would. I would be like,

you know, I'd go for an hour or so and then I'm like, I got, I got to sit down. Oh my gosh,

I'll be sucking on my Vatepen trying to feel better and everything, she'd be like,

all right, well, I'm just going to go ahead and I'll go to this castle and there I go over here.

Some of those, some of those castles, they are off the beaten track. They are, they are hard to get to.

[laughs] Oh, I was really surprised. When we went to Stonehenge,

we, we went to the visitor center and then took the little bus up to get to,

they haven't, have a stop, a stop, a stop there and there's also a walking path that you can take

to, to walk out to there from the visitor center and we decided to walk back, which was really great

because, um, nobody else was taking the walking path back and so we just got to, you know,

we go into this, um, this giant, uh, penned area for sheep and so we're just walking with the sheep

for a while and then we go onto the big mounds of the, of the, um, the remains that are set there so that

they have a view of Stonehenge when they're, when they're dead and walked around those and walked

with the soul for us to stuff and it was really, really great, especially all alone. It was just

magical, but what was funny is I didn't really realize that when you, when you're at Stonehenge, when you're on

the, with the stones, like you can see the highway right there, like that's, there's a road

really close so that people can see Stonehenge as their drive and buy and we came in kind of from

a different direction so we didn't see it coming up and I was like kind of let both like,

oh, well, that's cool. You can just drive by it and see it and just kind of get connected with it

that way and also traffic noise, like I just want to be here in the serene quiet and soak in these stones,

but you know, what can you do? Yeah, I sort of think there's, I don't know, I sort of had this

thought then of like, we can, I don't know, what worries the right word, but we can sort of think

that sometimes there is a right way to absorb a thing, you know, I must absorb this in silence or I must

have this thing and it's like, I don't know, maybe that is the right word, you know, maybe the

way to do it is just to be there and interact with all the different forms of what that particular

bit of landscape is at the time and right now in this period in history, it has some cars and

and you know, but it will still be there hopefully in a hundred years when the world of cars make no

noise and we all are the big bang. We all are the start-up that started everything and so we have lived

every lifetime that has come up to this point and we will live every lifetime afterwards and so we've

experienced it in its most serene quiet state, you know, just when it was nubs in a circle and then when it was

leveled and then when it was the first stones were brought, the blue stones were brought later and

like we've experienced every level of it and now we could have experienced it with a with a highway next to it.

Brendan, I think this is all time. I mean, I know all of the sentences, this is our time.

This is how it's time. And I know you just titled, I know you just titled the

your life in stride episode of Moment of Venn and you were not sure about what you're, and I know

you're not trying to get a name for your thing but I love the name of Moment of Venn,

like I know, it doesn't quite probably fit but it's just like also just kind of cool. Like,

I don't know, just something to it. But yeah, this is our time. We gotta sign off. I love you, buddy.

I'll talk to you next week. I love you too, man. Thank you.

[Music]

So, okay, great, quick point of admin is that whatever you did, if you want to turn yourself down,

then that would be good because it sounds like this will be good and it's now sounding a bit distorted.

So, yeah, cool. I wonder if it's, I wonder if it's different when it's not recording yet.

No, I think it's just because you started talking more animated. Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

I started talking.