Brett: We just got our Spotify statistics back for the year, and we are in the top one percent most shared podcasts for 2022 globally.
Joe: Wow.
Brett: That is fascinating. I love that. Also, we are in the top five per cent most followed globally already.
Joe: That’s so cool.
Brett: That’s incredible. We have had over 500 per cent growth of listeners over the past year, over 5X. I’m so stoked about that. I am really excited people have been sharing the podcast and that people have been loving it. Another stat we got from Spotify is the listener type of our listeners is the devotee, which is to say that our listeners tend to binge the podcast and listen to the same episodes over and over because they just really love them. That just blows me away. I am so grateful that people really like what we are doing, and that people share it so much. Thank you, everybody.
Joe: That’s amazing. First of all, that creates a lot of gratitude for the listeners. I want to thank everybody for sharing the podcast. That’s amazing. It is almost ridiculous. It is not a low self esteem thing. I am just dumbfounded that people are into it like this. It is funny because we listen to every podcast before it gets published, and I think that’s good and I would enjoy listening to that. But still, somehow or another, in my brain, I think wow, this is happening. People dig it. That’s really cool. It is a cool feeling.
Brett: On that note of gratitude and thank you, we are going to take this episode as an opportunity to answer some questions that people have asked. Last week I posted on our Twitter and in our Circle community to ask people to send us whatever questions they are sitting with and struggling with, and we have got a pretty solid list here.
Joe: I love this idea of a thank you by answering some questions.
2:26 Brett: Let’s dive in. The first one that we have is from Laure. She says she has noticed herself changing a lot through the VIEW practice as well as other adjacent growth practices. I still struggle with the concept of not having anger at. In theory, it seems very correct and healthy, but I am not sure when the feeling of anger at does arise. She is referring to anger at people, something that we discuss a lot in the courses and anger episodes.
She continues to say that she is curious if we can speak to the difference, if you see one, between feeling anger at and expressing it. How can she be both welcoming to her feelings but also know that’s not an okay feeling? How does she negotiate having the feeling, not suppressing, or denying it, but also know it is not okay? Is it possible to never feel angry at?
Joe: The answer is I don’t know if it is possible. I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have that experience of anger at. There is no way I would want you to repress that internal emotional state, and I apologize for whatever way I have miscommunicated so that you feel like there is some part of your emotional state that you aren’t allowed to love or accept. What I am saying there is the action of getting angry at somebody. I will be even more specific. It is angry at somebody without permission.
Sometimes Tara and I will give each other permission. We will see the anger and say it is okay. When we are coaching people or in retreats, we will tell them to get angry at us. We are excited to do that because there can be a lot of healing in that. However, without permission, then it is just manipulation. Whether it is subconscious, not conscious, or fully conscious, basically what’s happening there is somebody feels out of control if they get angry at somebody else. It is their bid for control, and that usually means controlling the other person. That’s what I am speaking to, not getting angry at somebody without permission.
Brett: I like the distinction you have made there about being angry at being manipulating. One way to tell is if my anger is moving through me and as a result or as an action from that anger, I am trying to change the other person, change their beliefs or their story, be above them or dominate them, make them take an action, make them feel scared, make them back away, or make them be anything, that’s an example of manipulating. What I have been finding through this week is if I am allowing that anger to move in me and I am just feeling it, it is my anger. It is not their anger. It is not for them. It is for me. That anger is for myself to feel that feeling and let it burn through whatever story I have so that I can find my clarity, and then from there, I can go to the person.
Joe: That’s right. The weird thing is though most of the time we are angry, we are angry at something, the anger is all about us. The anger is us feeling overwhelmed. The anger is us needing to draw a boundary or the anger is us learning how to not be passive aggressive. There are a whole bunch of reasons for it. That doesn’t mean you are responsible for getting angry, so if you are angry, you can beat yourself up. That’s not what I am saying.
I am just saying that the anger is exactly what you said. It is for us to learn, and it is not about the other person. At the same time, I know you have experienced this where if you can hold somebody’s anger, if you want to hold somebody’s anger and they are getting angry, it can be an incredibly healing thing. To be able to learn inside of yourself how to hold somebody in love when they are angry at you, it feels like a super power.
Brett: And then the reverse, when I have had a business partner or somebody who has been able to hold my wild rage at them and just love me, then that’s been an example. Those have been times when our relationship has gone way deeper. Also, that’s not a requirement. That’s not a relationship test. Can you hold this? Can you handle my anger? If someone is capable of doing that, great, I feel even safer. I could be even more of myself. That also makes me value the relationship more and also more want to own my part and find the boundaries that serve both of us.
Joe: That’s right. You said it really well. It is not a relationship test. It is not that you should be able to be with this anger or that you should be able to be in this relationship or you should be able to handle my anger or any of that. Do you want to be there for somebody’s anger? Maybe you don’t due to your own trauma. Maybe you don’t due to it being habitual. Maybe you don’t because you don’t have enough resources that day. Maybe you don’t because you are tired. Maybe you don’t because it hits your trauma. It is really about whether you want it or not. Don’t make it about anything besides that.
Brett: I’ve noticed part of that journey I have had with anger in this work was I initially thought if I could be there for someone’s anger, that’s great, so it becomes a should. I should be there for their anger. I should want their anger, but when it starts to become more, I guess, authentically a want for me is when there is actually deep wisdom and care in their anger. If I am actually feeling and seeing their care while the anger is coming up, then it is a thing deeply connected to my want. It is not a model of the way I should want to be better about this and make this problem go away, or make my own feelings of anger go away.
Joe: Exactly. Beautiful.
Brett: There is another piece there about making your anger about somebody else, which is one way to describe it. Your anger is about somebody else. In our courses, there are times where that’s invited. We do exercises around this. There is sort of a process where you might initially not allow yourself to feel the anger because it is not safe. It is suppressed and comes out sideways through passive aggression. Then the next step is to actually recognize you have anger. In that state, you might only be capable of experiencing the anger all about the external thing or the person. The only anger you are capable of feeling at that time perhaps is what we describe as anger at.
Joe: I would say somebody who has been self abusive for a long time, beating themselves up, having a critical voice in their head, always wondering what they did wrong when somebody else gets angry, depression, they need to get angry at somebody. That’s a really important step in that process, to just be able to fully allow that emotional experience to move. Maybe as you guys will hear, I did a session that will hopefully make it to the podcast with a couple that found out they were getting angry at each other when they were really just angry at the situation. They could share getting angry at the situation together. I highly recommend for people who are self abusive to move the anger out. If that’s at somebody, at God, or at me or at you, do it. Do it either with permission or somewhere where that person can’t hear you or know that it is happening. It is not their job to hold your anger. They can do it, but it’s not their job.
Brett: Find the friend that will let you vent and not buy your story and reinforce for you, but the friend that will let you vent or the pillow that will receive your venting.
Joe: Cool, what’s the next question? That was a good one. Thanks for asking, Laura.
10:43 Brett: The next question we have is from Eric. Eric says he finds he struggles way more when trying to connect in group connections. He knows staying in VIEW is important though for him it is harder to be both attentive in the conversation and present in his body without ignoring one or the other. He asks what advice we have for staying in VIEW during fast paced, complex group conversations.
Joe: There is a part of the answer, which is just practice. As we learn how to do it, it becomes easier and easier. There is a secondary thing. I think there is a distinction there you might not be seeing. It is very easy to be in VIEW and be present with what someone is saying or doing. That part of it is easy for everybody. In fact, I would say being in VIEW makes it easier to be present with people. The thing you might be seeing is the tricky part is responding. It is the speaking. It is being able to interact with them. You are saying it in the sentence, Eric, but I am not sure if that distinction has been fully made in yourself. That’s the part that as you practice becomes easier and easier to do.
What I would say is typically when it is hard for someone to do those things, there is a concern about doing it right or doing it in a way that’s going to get the result that you want. I would check the partiality in VIEW, so the I in VIEW. Oftentimes it is that partiality about wanting to be liked or wanting to be seen a certain way or wanting not to be hated or ostracized that gets in the way of our capacity to respond. We are judging ourselves in our response. I would use the tools you have learned to learn how to let go of that, the consequences, and to let go of the self judgment.
One of the tools I think is most useful is when you notice you judge yourself, see what the emotion is that it is protecting you from. Typically when we are judging ourselves or somebody else, it is because we don’t want to feel an emotion that’s underneath it. If you fully allow that feeling whether it is ostracization or aloneness or perfectionism or rigidity, if we fully allow the emotional experience underneath the judgment, that will allow you to have a more free expression. It is judgment that gets in the way of our expression typically.
Brett: I think one of the ways that that shows up for me in the way I have progressed through the work is I think a lot of people when they are in a conversation are used to thinking about what they are going to say next. This might not be for everybody. Some people might just be feeling and not doing so much intellectually. For me, I used to do a lot of thinking about the topic of conversation and plan my next statement, sentence or question a lot more than I do now. That by bringing more attention into my body, that signal became reduced and started to mix with these much more fuzzy emotional signals in my body.
Initially that started to be a little bit disorienting. I didn’t know what question was going to come out of me next because I am not spending as much of my awareness on calculating the next thing to say, which means I am actually receiving what they are saying. The next thing that I say is likely to be far more connected to both of us and the conversation, but I might not have any idea what it is going to be until I speak it, which can be disconcerting and disorienting at first.
Joe: At first, yeah. I would say the other way to point this out in a way that’s useful as far as a hack is just focus on enjoying yourself, not on the results of the group interaction. How do I enjoy this group interaction? This fast paced group interaction, how do you enjoy that? I would say if you can focus there, a lot of this stuff goes away naturally.
Brett: That’s an awesome pointer.
Joe: Another question, I like this. This is fun.
15:12 Brett: I am enjoying it. The next one comes from Kat. He asks if you can talk about depression. What is depression? How do I play with it? I love that question. I love the phrasing of that question.
Joe: I can totally talk about this. I love this question. Depression, let’s use the three minds for a minute. On the intellectual, prefrontal cortex mind, it is negative self-talk. It is an abnormal amount of negative self-talk, abnormal just meaning high enough to make you get depressed. On an emotional level, it is repressed anger typically, sometimes repressed sadness but often repressed anger. The anger is going in instead of going out or moving through. Then on a nervous system level, it is constantly attentive to the next foot that is going to fall, the next attack. By the way, it is always coming because internally your head is beating you up all the time, so the attack is constantly coming. You are constantly looking for it. It is a constant diligence, which is why anti depressant and anti anxiety medicines are often used to treat depression because it is about that [breathing fast noises]. On a community side of it, it is a disconnection, a feeling of disconnection with people. It is not feeling like you are connected with each other.
You can work on depression on all of those levels. Interacting with people and making sure that you have a rich social life is a great way to work with it. Moving the emotions, the anger and the sadness, is a great way to work with it. Notice that the voice in your head is absolute bullshit in that it is not true and that is not serving you. It is not a good boss. There are a whole bunch of tools you can use for the critical voice in your head. For the nervous system, learning to have a deep non guilty pleasure and sustain it. How do you be in pleasure? The pleasure of breathing, the pleasure of walking, the pleasure of hearing your vocal cords vibrate in your chest. Life in its essence is very pleasurable, and so how do you learn to rest in that pleasure and enjoyment? Those are the techniques I have seen allow folks to move through depression.
There is some level of chemical stuff happening in the brain. I am not suggesting that for some folks medicinal treatments aren’t great. This is basically how it works. If you are working on it with medicine or without medicine, these are the ways I would suggest.
Brett: I love the piece about anger. If the anger is stagnant and not moving, this can lead to depression and it often results from the anger being turned inwards. I’ve come to see anger connected to in a broader sense aggression and in an even broader sense motivation, eros, our capacity to move towards and want something. If I am spending a significant amount of that energy on telling myself how to be, then I might ask myself where all of my motivation but all of my motivation is actually going towards telling myself how to be and beating myself up. Of course I am going to be tired all day and exhausted and need to recover from that on a regular basis.
Joe: I’ve never heard it articulated like that. It is such a great articulation of it. You are very motivated to beat yourself up. What do you mean you don’t have motivation? It is a full time job. You might not even be sleeping you are so into it. You wake up in the middle of the night beating yourself up. That’s total motivation. Do you know the amount of willpower it takes to beat yourself like that 24/7? I love this. It is great.
Brett: Back to Kat’s question of how to play with it, how much can you enjoy beating yourself up? What does that do to it? What does that do if you notice you are beating yourself up, here is my motivation? What happens then?
Joe: The play with it, I mean you have seen me do this in different groups. Notice that when the negative voice in your head speaks to you in a certain way, you respond almost always in the same way. You should work out more. You should be nicer to people. Your response is typically just accepting it as truth and maybe there is a thought of okay, fine, you are right. There is some energetic response to it. If you want to play with it, have different responses to it. Every time it does it, sing it a musical. Every time it does it, just call it the politician that you hate the most and make a nickname for it or play with it, tickle it or love it or see it as a little kid who is having a temper tantrum and you just need to hold it. That’s a great way to play with it. It is really not to take the critical voice in your head seriously.
Brett: I love that one.
Joe: What’s next? I am excited. Thank you, Kat, and Eric, too. I don’t think we thanked Eric. Thank you, Eric, for your question too.
21:01 Brett: Next question comes from Dominic.
Joe: Hi, Dominic.
Brett: Dominic says the more I do the work, the more connected I feel and the more alone I am. What is that all about? I don’t feel loneliness but a very strong and distinct self. I am all alone. Is this a contradiction, feeling connected yet more alone, or simply a more nuanced and distinct understanding of self across a number of identities one chooses?
Joe: That’s a great question. There are three questions in there. The more you do this work, the more you do any self discovery work, the more the truth comes out and the truth is we are alone. No matter how much you love, no matter how close you are to somebody, nobody can share your experience with you. We are alone in that. That reality is true. I love that you are making that distinction between that and loneliness. It is not the feeling of loneliness, so that’s a wonderful thing.
Then you start speaking about it as an identity and it feels like it is an identity. Unfortunately, it is not as clear as that. What I have noticed is when I fully allow that identity of aloneness or the identity that permeates behind all of the other identities, which is one way to say it, the thing that I have always been and that I will always be even though my body has changed, my habits have changed, my thoughts are changing, my emotional state is changing, what is the essential me? What I notice is that it both makes me have a firmer sense of identity and less of an identity eventually. My identity becomes more transparent, more fluid on one level, and it becomes more clear in myself and another level more solid almost.
If you get into it really deeply, then the question becomes what I am. That question isn’t really answerable. That’s a question you are just in until it illuminates and dissolves almost. There are a couple sensations when you happen when you are in that question for a period of time. One is the sensation of being everything and one is a sensation of being nothing, a piece of dust in the infinity of space. I am all of space. Both of those are felt experiences that one has when you are in that question for an extended period of time. It is the same feeling, a sense of aloneness without loneliness or the same feeling of having a very strong identity, but actually no identity at all.
There is a bit of a paradox in it until it is lived. Then there is no paradox in it at all. I would just say that where I hear you are is just in the natural flow of finding out what you are essentially or what your authenticity is or what you have always been that can’t be changed or destroyed, the thing you don’t have to protect.
24:38 Brett: I love that, too. Rather than respond to that myself, I am going to lead into the next question because I think this one follows it beautifully. Thank you, Dominic. Now that question from Dustin. Dustin says as he works to release judgments and forgive himself and others, drawing and holding respectful boundaries, he feels good. Maybe not enlightenment, but a more lucid state of consciousness. In this state, however, he finds it difficult to discern or follow his desires and passions as though they become more diffuse. This leaves him somewhat immobile with regard to taking action on something new or different. What happens to desire in this whole thing?
Joe: Whoa. That’s a great question. The question I would ask back is how he knows that his desires are becoming more diffuse or his desires are changing, and he is finding he has more authentic desires. I guess that would be the question. One of the ways you could answer this question is to notice from the moment you wake up until 10 o’clock in the morning or two hours after you wake up that you have made 100 choices with 100 preferences by that time. There is something that is not diffuse happening. There is this constant moving towards preferences that happens, so there is clarity of preference. Otherwise, you would just be in bed and even that may be a preference.
On some level, the question is if they are becoming more diffuse or if you are learning to listen to yourself differently and therefore don’t understand the really big movements or that you are in a period of integration, not in a period of action. You are in an inhale, not an exhale at this moment. What I notice is that as we start to see the world differently and interact with the world differently, our desires change.
The way I would say this is when Tara and I first dated, she was remarkably beautiful and young and everything society would say is amazing. I would have these little nitpicky things in my mind around this curve or that thing or whatever it was, this part of her body. Now we are older and we are both middle aged, and we don’t look like we did when we were 20. I can’t find any fault in her when I look at her. What I thought I wanted then is not at all what I want now. My wants have changed over time and it is more a reflection I do. If I used to be motivated by finding the perfect body to be with, I am no longer motivated by that and what I want has completely changed. During that, there is this moment of going out and acting, doing the experiments to see what I want, and there is a moment of integration of what I have learned and seeing how my motivation and wants change.
I would say experiment and play with that and see how true that is for you. The only piece I would add potentially is and it doesn’t sound like this at all through your question, but what might be happening is you were really operating on adrenaline for a long time. You were really operating on pushing yourself. As that subsides, you just need to rest. You are just going to need to let the nervous system recover before you are ready to go and dig your next big well or start your next company or whatever it is.
Brett: What that brings up for me is I think a lot of us have been used to for much of our lives associating wanting with craving. When the craving falls away, we wonder where the wanting is. There are still wants there. I think this also relates back to Dominic’s previous question. I think a lot of times we conflate connection with clinging. When we find ourselves no longer clinging and craving something from somebody, then we feel more alone but not lonely. This might be confusing at first, but I think both of these questions seem very related in that way.
Joe: I love that. I think all of our emotional states, as we learn to love them, as we are not resisting them, and as we are not putting tension in the line and letting them move through, they all become less intense. Sometimes we think of that as relief and sometimes we wonder where that went.
Brett: Which doesn’t mean that life is less intense. It just might mean the intensity moves to something else that we are used to experiencing intensely, like joy.
Joe: That’s exactly right.
Brett: Intensely enjoying feeling sadness.
Joe: All of a sudden the thing that I could live with because I didn’t feel it as intensely, now I can’t live with. There is the intensity of being more sensitive.
30:07 Brett: Awesome. Thank you, Dustin. The next question we’ve got is from Calvin. He asks about approaching relationships with people who have mental health issues. His question was actually quite long, a couple of paragraphs. I am cutting it down. In it, he described a close relationship with whom he used to connect very deeply but he has struggled to do so as their mental health has changed. Without going into details about what that was, he asks how he can approach relationships with people who are struggling with their mental health. He asks what he can do for them and what he can do for himself.
Joe: That’s great. There are probably better people to ask that question to than me. I don’t deal with a lot of folks. I’ve had some mental health issues in my friend group and family, but it isn’t something I have a ton of experience with. One of the things I definitely realized in that process was if I had a friend who had an injury and is paralyzed, I am not going to go for walks with him anymore. Your friendship is going to change if your friend is going through mental health issues. You can’t expect them, depending on the mental health thing, to be rational or to be able to be connected with you in the same way or be able to not get paranoid around you or whatever the situation is or be even in this reality so to speak.
I think the main thing is to let go of those expectations of them. You see this happen with people with Alzheimer’s all of the time. There is a dad, mom and kids. The dad, let’s say, gets Alzheimer’s. They are not even close to functional. They can’t do the same things, but everyone is treating them the same way. That’s dad. I have to be scared of his anger, so I am going to do whatever he says. The guy has got Alzheimer’s. You shouldn’t be doing what he says. You probably shouldn’t have before. You are interacting with them as if they are still coherent when they are not coherent. I think there is a lot of relief to be had in recognizing that they have had their issue and you need to interact with them differently. I think that’s a really big thing.
There is no possible way for you to be good for them if you are not being good for yourself. Self care is an incredibly important part of that process. You don’t want to enter into their mental health with them. You want to make sure that you are taking care of yourself and your own mental health in that process. It is really critical because just like if all of a sudden you are living with somebody who needs you to cook for them, clean for them, wipe them and all of that stuff, it is going to take a lot. If you are all of a sudden dealing with someone who is constantly walking around the house thinking there are bugs in the walk listening to them, it is going to take a lot. That self care is an incredibly crucial piece to it.
The last thing is go find a professional who can help you. It is really important to find a professional who can help them and you. Right now that’s hard in our society because there are a lot of mental health issues because of the COVID situation. There are not as many people. I’ve heard statistics that there are not enough therapists out there or not enough psychiatrists out there for the people who need it. Do whatever you have to do to find that help even if it is just online reading, but do whatever you can to get that help and to really find the resources to help you.
Brett: It sounds like what you are speaking to there is grieving the connection you had so that you can find the connection that is available and how deeply you can connect with the person as they are and stay with yourself and your needs.
Joe: Without sacrificing yourself. You aren’t doing anybody any good by sacrificing yourself in it. If you do sacrifice yourself in it long enough, either you are going to join them in their swirl or you are going to resent them and lash out at some point, neither of which is going to feel good.
Brett: Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Calvin.
Joe: There is one other piece, just for Calvin. I would say boundaries are a really important process, so listen to the boundary. Boundaries are really important with mental health. Some of the biggest part of self care is the boundaries.
Brett: It reminds me of something you have mentioned before is a lot of the addicts' anonymous groups have groups for the people who are supporting or are entangled. I think the same thing can be true for mental health. You need support.
Joe: Exactly.
35:27 Brett: Thank you, Calvin. The next one comes from Bryce. Bryce asks what it means or looks like to be patient with our own growth process. What are some practices that can help with patience?
Joe: That’s a lovely question. It was such an interesting question. The reason it is interesting is I am wondering what the question would be like if you asked me what it is like to be patient with somebody else and how that question is hard to make sense of. It is hard to make sense of how you can be patient with yourself, but I notice if we are trying to be patient, we are not. That’s what I notice. The idea of trying to be patient is not patience. You are kind of asking me how to be patient, but there is also the question in there of how to try to be patient. I want to make that distinction. Don’t try to be patient with yourself. It isn’t patience.
What I would say is maybe the word that’s easier is gentleness, how to be gentle with yourself. Being gentle with yourself is being grateful for the transformation that’s been happening. That also accelerates the transformation and the growth. For me, the biggest hack in all of this is to regularly, daily give yourself gratitude for the transformation that’s been happening and that is happening, the little wins of the day, the little ways you saw things differently that day, the little habits you didn’t do for a day even if you do them tomorrow. How do you give yourself the encouragement that isn’t meant to fix you? It is the encouragement that is just acknowledgement of what you have done.
Growth, transformation is easier if we feel good about what we are doing. If I think I’ve done 100 pushups and then I think I need to do more pushups, doing pushups isn’t fun. It can be like I did 100 pushups, hell yes, then I am more likely to want to do push ups the next day. How do you give yourself the gratitude? It doesn’t have to be yeah. It can be thank you, Bryce, for showing up again today and noticing that these thought patterns were getting in your way. Thank you for being here doing this gratitude practice again. Thank you for asking Joe a question. I believe Bryce meditates, so it can be thank you for meditating. To me, it is how to be grateful for the transformation you are having, see the abundance of that and see it is constantly happening around you. To me, that’s the best hack.
Brett: I have nothing to add to that. That’s really nice. Thank you, Bryce. I think that’s it for today. We have some more questions. Maybe we will get around to them on another episode. If you submitted a question and we didn’t get to it, I apologize. I would love to get to it.
Joe: If you have a question and you didn’t know this was possible, please drop the question. What are the ways they can drop?
Brett: You can tweet them to us on Twitter @artofaccomp. You can ask them on Circle if you are in any of our circle communities. You can also email them to us at podcast@artofaccomplishment.com.
Joe: Instagram, too. You can find us on Instagram and pose a question there as well. Hopefully we will make a practice of this if we get enough good questions. We will keep on answering them here.
Brett: I would love to do this monthly or maybe even more if we start getting floods of questions.
Joe: That sounds great.
Brett: Thank you, everybody, listeners and all of the people who have been sharing this.
Joe: Thank you for helping the share numbers and the growth numbers. That just feels wonderful. I appreciate that.
Brett: Thank you, Joe. I appreciate you.
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