Ben Katt on Getting Quiet, Midlife, and the Power of Ritual (also, we chat about David Hasselhoff)

Summary

Contemplify with Paul Swanson

Episode: Ben Katt on Getting Quiet, Midlife, and the Power of Ritual (also, we chat about David Hasselhoff)
Date: October 6, 2024
Guest: Ben Katt, ordained minister, meditation teacher, author of The Way Home: Discovering the Hero's Journey to Wholeness at Midlife

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Episode Overview

This conversation between Paul Swanson and Ben Katt dives deep into the contemplative journey at midlife, exploring themes from Ben’s memoir/guidebook, The Way Home. Topics include the importance of rituals, the reality of slowing down and getting quiet, the vital role of relationships, the myth of the lone hero, and the power and necessity of grief. They also lighten the tone with stories about karaoke and a quirky David Hasselhoff Museum. The tone is thoughtful, warm, and occasionally playful, with both men reflecting openly about personal transformation, the everyday sacred, and how to carry hard-won insights into ordinary life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Finding Home—in Place and Practice

• Ben's "Cat Cave": Ben describes his home office ("cat cave"), crafted in the corner of his Milwaukee laundry room, as his sacred writing space. He notes his return to the shores of Lake Michigan as a "Great Lakes person," likening himself and his wife (from Lake Ontario) to hobbits who belong to the land.

  • "We are to the Great Lakes what the hobbits are to the Shire." (03:02, Ben)

• On Feeling at Home with Water: Paul mentions missing water, living in the desert, and how the ease and calm of the lake environment is restorative.

  • "It just naturally calms me and gives me life." (02:18, Paul)

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2. The David Hasselhoff Museum (and Embracing the Unexpected)

• Ben tells the story of stumbling upon "the world’s smallest David Hasselhoff museum" in a Berlin karaoke bar—an accidental pilgrimage in the midst of work travel and an unexpected moment of joy during a tough job season.
  • "Just on your way to the bathroom, you go like, go down this hallway...there’s this intense, framed photo of David Hasselhoff staring at you...They called it a David Hasselhoff museum. Maybe the world’s smallest. Could be the only." (03:33, Ben)
• Memorable moment: Both Paul and Ben riff on the perennial popularity of David Hasselhoff in Germany and how such oddities can break up and contextualize our journeys.

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3. What is a Contemplative?

• Ben affirms identifying as a contemplative, drawn to solitude, silence, stillness, and mystical direct experience of the divine.
  • "This idea of having direct, unmediated experience with the divine...being in a constant conversation with that something more. Yeah, I absolutely identify with it." (06:37, Ben)
• He notes that finding the contemplative tradition was a homecoming after spiritual experiences on the edges of more dogmatic religious structures.

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4. Syllabus of Formation: Influences on Ben Katt

On the question, "What three works, places, or influences would be mandatory for a course on your formation?" (09:00)

• a. Calvin College (now University):
  Both nourishing and challenging, it gave Ben a vision of humility, justice, and service, but also exposed him to judgmentalism and dogmatism.

  • "There’s a certain power over, and there’s a certain power under...humility and service and seeking justice and extending compassion." (09:21, Ben)

• b. Bill Plotkin’s Soulcraft:
  Encountering the book put Ben on a "soul descent," challenging surface-level identity and sparking transformative wilderness quest.

  • "It came to me and really was the thing that accompanied me on a journey of soul descent where I was shedding the more surface layers..." (09:21, Ben)

• c. Family:
  "Annual brother’s weekend," karaoke, sports, beer, and deep connection with wife and children as ongoing sources of identity.

  • "I am who I am because they are who they are." (09:21, Ben)

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5. Cornerstone Practice: Meditation

• Ben’s current foundation is a "being technique" meditation (20 minutes, twice a day)—akin to Transcendental Meditation or Vedic practices.
  • "That is not only my passion to share...but that’s my grounding practice...it’s really stabilized my way of being and affected my nervous system." (13:52, Ben)

How Ben Discovered the Practice

• After burnout and starting anew in a difficult job, Ben attended a Harvard Divinity event led by Casper Ter Kuile and met Jesse Israel (founder, The Big Quiet), who introduced him to "One Giant Mind," a meditation community.
  • "Curiosity is piqued by something. You get a fragrance that hits your nostrils...the next thing you know...years later, trained as a meditation teacher in that tradition." (19:18, Paul)

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6. Book Deep Dive: Midlife, Wholeness, and the Ordinary Hero’s Journey

The Book in a Nutshell (21:02)

• The Way Home is “part memoir, part guidebook” for anyone who senses they’ve outgrown their current life and want to migrate toward a fuller self.
  • "How to...when those cracks start to show, it's like trying to help people notice them and pay attention rather than kind of quickly patching it up..." (21:02, Ben)

The Culture of Reinvention—and Resistance to "Grand Comebacks"

• Ben challenges society’s obsession with dramatic, phoenix-like transformations, focusing instead on "ordinary, quieter ways we lose our soul," especially amid midlife busyness.
  • "I'm interested in...all the ordinary, quieter ways that we lose our soul...how in the midst of daily life...how do we start to go on that inner journey?" (21:02, Ben)

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7. The Power of Slowing Down and Paying Attention

• Ben describes his literal and metaphorical burnout, the epiphanic moment ("If you don't have your heart, you have nothing"), and how a mentor’s advice to slow down and pay attention became the cornerstone of his transformation.
  • "I just think, for different people...most [healing] are all some version of slowing down and paying attention. That has to be the first step." (25:54, Ben)

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8. Dispelling the "Lone Hero" Myth: The Role of Relationships

• Ben intentionally critiques Joseph Campbell’s individualistic “hero’s journey,” emphasizing that the path to wholeness must be walked in community.
  • "This is a journey that only you can take...and that being said, there's never a single moment that you're alone...it's critical to have people by your side...an anam cara, a soul friend...to hold up a mirror..." (32:03, Ben)
• Memorable moment:
  • "If we're lucky, that person will be David Hasselhoff." (35:03, Paul)
  • "I'll be ready, I'll be ready..." (35:11, Ben, singing Baywatch theme)

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9. The Directive: Get Quiet

• Cherie, Ben’s wife, gives him the simple but profound advice: “Get quiet,” which cut through his cycles of overachievement and noisy plans, calling him deeper into stillness and honesty.
  • "She just says, 'Get quiet.'...not calling me out. It's like calling me back home to myself." (36:07, Ben)

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10. The Power & Playfulness of Ritual

• Both traditional and creative rituals—dreamwork, meditation, wilderness wanderings, the "death lodge"—mark thresholds and facilitate transformation.
  • "Rituals are an interruption of the sacred into the profane...they help us be more present to life in all of its simplicity and complexity." (40:53, Ben)
• Ben highlights the need for childlike play in ritual:
  • "There's a certain level you have to become like a child and be playful...your imagination expands and you're more open." (42:00, Ben)

Ritual and the Need for Grief

• Rituals provide rare, sacred spaces for grief and spiritual unmasking—countercultural opportunities, especially for men or those in leadership, to fall apart and be remade.
  • "We don't have a lot of places in our culture where we can fall apart...Ritual, it opens the door to that." (51:13, Ben)

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11. The "Death Lodge": Shedding Old Selves

• Ben describes the "death lodge" as a ritual of separation from old roles or identities—sometimes an act of hope, sometimes an acknowledgement of inner change.
  • "It was a profound moment...realizing, wow, like, I have severed my sense of identity from this thing...a way of me marking through this ritual that the way I would engage it would be out of allegiance to this truer part of myself..." (47:05, Ben)

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12. Returning & Reentry: The Challenge After the Quest

• Paul and Ben focus on how reentry after major growth/ritual can be the hardest phase, and how intentionality, creative expression, and wise boundaries are crucial for integrating what was gained.
  • "The reentry process, it's its own grueling phase of the journey...be very intentional about how we are moving through the world when we return." (56:49, Ben)

Suggestions for Reentry:

• Build "projects" (creative, physical, service-oriented) that embody the new self.
• Be judicious about sharing insights; prioritize presence and boundaries.
• Accept the ordinariness of return.

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13. Living (and Beginning) the New Myth

• The journey is both unnamable and cyclical—"the myth keeps unfolding." Post-quest, Ben now acts from love, not from compulsion to achieve, and embraces the ordinary, whether writing a book or working in his family's brewery.
  • "The whole book, I wrote it in the morning...I didn't show anyone...I knew I needed to do it...when I was done, it was like, maybe this is just for my kids...The myth keeps unfolding." (61:00-66:19, Ben)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• "We are to the Great Lakes what the hobbits are to the Shire." (03:02, Ben)
• "You'll never know when you might run into a David Hasselhoff museum..." (06:00, Paul)
• "I always felt like I was on the edge of the tradition that I was in...then I found refuge in contemplative voices and practices—it all felt like a beautiful homecoming." (06:37, Ben)
• "If you don't have your heart, you have nothing." (25:54, Ben, quoting his inner voice)
• "The journey to wholeness is about encountering that deeper part of yourself that's there waiting to emerge—but all sorts of things in life and our culture have covered up." (21:02, Ben)
• "There's no single moment that you're alone...You're connected in a spiritual sense to those across time. But also, it is critical...to have someone who will lovingly walk with you, will hold up a mirror to help you see what you can't see about yourself..." (32:03, Ben)
• _"Get quiet." (36:07, Cherie Katt, quoted by Ben)
• "Rituals are an interruption of the sacred into the profane...a way of opening ourselves up to something more..." (40:53, Ben)
• "We don't have a lot of places in our culture where we can fall apart...Ritual, it opens the door to that...it allows for an in-breaking of something else." (51:13, Ben)
• "There's always beginning again...The myth keeps unfolding." (61:00-66:19, Ben)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:06–03:09 — Ben’s environment, family, and fondness for the Great Lakes
• 03:10–06:00 — The story of the Berlin David Hasselhoff Museum
• 06:00–09:21 — Defining "contemplative" and formative influences
• 13:52–19:18 — Ben’s core practice: meditation and how he found it
• 21:02–30:31 — Book summary and discussions of ordinary transformation
• 30:31–36:07 — On the myth of the solo hero, importance of relationships
• 36:07–39:41 — Advice from Cherie Katt: “Get quiet,” and its impact
• 39:41–51:13 — Rituals and their role in change and grief
• 56:13–60:16 — The rarely discussed challenge of “reentry” after transformation
• 61:00–66:19 — Ben’s current myth, openness to the unknown, and the unfolding journey
• 67:47–68:31 — Embodied closing: pairing the conversation with peppermint tea

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Closing Thoughts & Recommendations

This episode is a subtle, touching guide through the messy, non-linear process of midlife transformation. Ben Katt offers not just stories but concrete wisdom on the necessity of slowing down, the inevitability of grief, the power of ritual, and the always-unfolding communal journey of becoming. There's joy in the ordinary and laughter in the strange—like stumbling on a Hasselhoff museum or finding a soul friend at karaoke. As Ben says, "Get quiet." And as Paul reminds, so much begins by paying attention to what’s quietly unfolding within us and around us.

Pairing Suggestion: Peppermint tea—fresh, simple, and quietly invigorating.
"A freshness. It gives, you know, sort of like attentiveness." (68:15, Ben)

Book:
The Way Home: Discovering the Hero's Journey to Wholeness at Midlife by Ben Katt

For More: Visit contemplify.com and benjaminkatt.com

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Contemplify where we seek to kindle the examined life for contemplatives in the world. I'm your host, Paul Swanson. Today I'm in conversation with Ben Khat. Ben Kot has worked with Ambin as an ordained minister, meditation teacher and authority. His first book, the Way Home Discovering the Hero's Journey to Wholeness at Midlife is a guidebook and memoir about the inner journey that calls us further in the midst of life's busyness. In our conversation, we talk about a David Hasselhoff museum, slowing down your life to catch up to it, relationships of depth and why they matter, and much, much more. As always, you can visit contemplified.com for the show notes on this episode and learn more about [e-mail] that's B E N J A M I N k a t t.com now join me in raising a glass to my guest today, Benjamin Cott. Ben, I always love to start just a sense of context. Where are you right now in the world? What is the room you're in? And maybe the wider geographical area. But let's start with that. Where are we finding you today?

[B]

Well, I'm in my, my cat cave or my study, my office here, which is in our basement in our home where I live with my wife and our three children. And like just to the side of me, you know, I have this nice background behind me and I have books on the other side of the screen that I'm looking at. But if you go just a little bit further, like six feet to my left, you're in the laundry room. I'm basically in my laundry room, let's be honest, which I carved out this space when we moved into this home and it's where I wrote the book. It's sort of a sacred space for me, but situated more broadly in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and on the shores of the beautiful Lake Michigan. It's about a half mile walk and I take all opportunities to go check it out when I can.

[A]

I love that that lake is so special in so many ways. I'm envious that you live so close to that lake. Being out here in the desert, I miss the ease and whatever it is, I'm a water person. It just naturally calms me and gives me life.

[B]

Yeah, you know, I hear that. So we move back here. It's back here for me. I grew up in this area but then lived in Seattle and love, love the Pacific Northwest and the mountains and the water out there. But there's something so profoundly Refreshing. And this feeling of being at home in being by Lake Michigan. My wife actually grew up near Lake Ontario, so she's Canadian. So we're like Great Lakes people. We're like the hobbits are to the Shire. We are to the Great Lakes. So we feel really fortunate to live here.

[A]

I resonate with that. That's fantastic. There's one question that I just have to start with, because when I saw this piece in your book, I was like, we'll get to your book. I want to talk about you first. But I have to start. This question, which may be the most pressing question for anyone who has read your book, is can you tell us the story about a karaoke bar in Berlin that has a small underground David Hasselhoff museum?

[B]

Oh, I'm so thankful that you caught that. Yes. So early 2019 this was. Or, sorry, 2020, right before COVID I mean, Covid the pandemic had already. Covid was already happening. This virus was spreading around the world. Who knows if I had encountered it when I was in Berlin, but I was there for a work trip and found, as I do when I'm in other cities, I found one in Albuquerque before when I've been there. So I always look for a karaoke bar. And if there's people who are willing to go with me, great. If not, hey, I'll go by myself. But some colleagues went with me. It was in the lobby of this hotel, actually. You go downstairs in the hotel, and then there's, like, a bar under the bar. That's where the karaoke was. But just, like, on your way to the bathroom, you go, like, go down this hallway. You go to the right. There's the restroom. Go to the left, and there's this framed, intense, like, photo or, like, painting of David Hasselhoff staring at you. And then the walls had, like, you know, it was, like, encased. I think it was behind, like, glass. But, like, all these. These, like, artifacts, these souvenirs from his career. So they called it a David Hasselhoff museum. Maybe it was even, like, the world's smallest David Hasselhoff museum. It could be the only David Hasselhoff museum. I'm not sure.

[A]

That's amazing. I'm going to add that to the bucket list of Hasselhoff agenda items. That is so great. I mean, I've always known that joke that how big David Hasselhoff is in Germany, I think from the old SNL Norm MacDonald days. But my interest is so piqued. And just to hear that description is I was Just picturing every step of the way, and I can't.

[B]

I appreciate you asking. It's so funny in the book, while part of my journey through this, five years, really four years of this season of my life, I was in this job that. Spoiler alert. I didn't want to be in. And yet being in a role that I was uncomfortable with, in a sense, it really stretched me. And that's what helped send me on this soul journey in a way, because I was learning to separate who I am from what I do. And it's funny, I don't mention a lot of specifics about the job, but I mentioned. I just had to. I was like, this will be a fun way to kind of just like. Yeah, I was in Berlin and I saw this David Hasselhoff museum. So I'm so glad you caught that. Yeah.

[A]

Well, I think a good lesson there is you'll never know when you might run into a David Hasselhoff museum. So just when in doubt, you gotta at least explore whatever new city you're in.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It's so great to get to finally meet you after reading your book. And I'm left with more curiosity about who you are and how you orientate yourself in the world. There's a lot of hints to this. I might have my guess how you might respond, but when you hear the word contemplative, how do you feel that resonates for you or doesn't. Does that moniker. Is that something that you would call yourself?

[B]

Yes, I absolutely would. I mean, I don't know that I do often, but this idea of being someone who is drawn to both in practice and in, like, literature, to these, you know, to solitude, silence, stillness, to. And alongside that kind of this mystical way of being in the world, which is definitely a huge part of how I orient myself. This idea of having direct, unmediated experience with the divine, with God, with the universe, and being in this constant conversation with that something more. Yeah, I absolutely identify with it. And that. Actually, I would say it wasn't until later. So I was an ordained minister for a number of years and always felt like I was on the edge of the tradition that I was in. And even in spaces that I was in, I just always felt like there was some different way that I was relating to this Christ story or this tradition. And as I got deeper into that and found. I sort of found a refuge in contemplative voices and practices, and it was like, oh, these are my people. And then as time went on, encountering voices and people like that and practitioners from other traditions. It sort of all felt like a beautiful homecoming.

[A]

You certainly picked that up in your writing. And I had this similar experience where it's almost like I didn't realize how smudged my glasses were. And then somebody came and just, like, wiped them off from me. I'm like, oh, here's my people. They've been around this entire time. But I didn't have the right lens or framework to see the contemplatives of my midst in real time or in deep time, and being able to follow suit about the wisdom that they're offering. So I loved hearing that. In that same spirit. This is my favorite question that I love to ask each guest is if someone were going to teach a class on the formation of Benjamin Kat, what would be the mandatory three works that could be readings, they could be art, they could be places that formed you. That would definitely be on that syllabus.

[B]

Oh, okay. So they can be. Say that again.

[A]

They could be readings or art or places. But the things that would be on your syllabus for someone to understand your formation. So it might be something that you've let go of, but. And three is a general number. If there's a few extra, I totally get that.

[B]

Yeah. The first one that comes up for me is I'd say where I went to school, because I feel like it encompasses a lot more in a certain lineage. But I went to a place called Calvin College, now Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. And the best of what that sort of. That university is affiliated with a tradition, the Christian Reformed Church, the Reformed tradition. And being there, coming through there, there's absolutely beautiful, some beautiful things that I encountered there, this idea of being a participant in the renewal of all things, of a life of service community. And I name that as one of the things people should check out on my syllabus, because there's also other strands of that tradition that were ultimately harmful in a way, to me and I think, to so many others that are sort of stale and lifeless. There's a certain dogmatic streak to it. There'. Swede. Which can come with a lot of sort of judgmentalism, and there's a sense of kind of control in a way of interacting with power. So even within that tradition, to use the phrase the kingdom of God. Right. Which is something we hear Jesus talking about in the Gospels, like, there's sort of one aspect of that tradition that wants to do this sort of power over and use, you know, whatever means we can to spread a certain worldview and there's another that's like this sort of power under is how do we embody this. This way of humility and service and seeking justice and extending compassion. So Calvin would be one. The second one I would say at this point, and I mentioned this a number of times in the way home. I have to point to the work of Bill Plotkin and his book Soulcraft especially, but he's got a few others. Nature and the human soul, Wild Mind. I encountered his work at just the right time. It came to me and really was the thing that accompanied me on a journey of soul descent where I was shedding the more surface layers of who I was and encountering this deeper, truer version of myself. So through those readings, through conversations with others, and ultimately through a wilderness quest that I went on, that was like a two week transformative experience. So I would name that. And the last one, I'm going to say family. And that's going to both include hanging around. So probably it could be watching the Green Bay packers on Sunday with my dad and my brothers. Maybe that would be one of them. But I have three brothers. I don't have any sisters. My brothers and I do an annual brother's weekend every year. Think if you tagged along on that, you get to sing karaoke with us, probably watch some sports ball of some sort. We'd play Settlers of Catan and drink some craft beer. And I think there's like four distinct people groups that that covers. But somehow we all converge and are like all those things. So my brothers and then just also my wife Cherie, we've been married 20 years and my three children come hang out with us here in Milwaukee. And I am who I am because they are who they are. So that would be the third. I'll leave it at 3.

[A]

Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for that. There's so much represented, I think, in those answers. I feel connected in your book of the tradition that formed you. The wildness of nature and the relationships, the web of relationships that make you who you are and that connectedness. So I really appreciate hearing that as you articulate that just now. And I'm excited to get into some of those themes too as we talk about your book. And I'm thinking about you as a contemplative, the things that have formed you some. You know, in your book you talk about a lot of different practices. Do you have a most or a rhythm or a practice that you are investing in right now that you kind of consider your. Your base practice or your base Rhythm?

[B]

Yes, absolutely. In, like, 2019, 2018, I started, you know, I'd been kind of around various contemplative practices, specifically from the Christian tradition or Christian tradition. But I started practicing a meditation technique. We call it a being technique. It's basically part of this. It's related to, like, Transcendental Meditation, or tm, which some people have heard of, or Vedic meditation, comes out of ancient India and eventually became certified. And I, as a teacher, I teach folks meditation, which. There's a lot more to that than people think. But that is not only my passion to share that with others, but that's my grounding practice. It's a place of solitude every day and stillness. And it's about 20 minutes twice a day. And I don't miss it. In fact, I can't, like, wait to get to it every day. And I, you know, I wonder if I would have encountered that practice earlier. It's sort of just fun to wonder. It's like, because it's really stabilized my way of being and affected my nervous system and just altered my way of relating to the world. And as someone who was fairly driven and kind of hustling a lot and dealt with burnout, which then plunged me into this season of self exploration, I'm always kind of curious what would have happened if I was engaged in this practice earlier. Anyways. Yeah. So that would absolutely be it. Meditation.

[A]

Yeah. How were you introduced to this form of meditation?

[B]

I love that question. Because let me try to open up a world here without letting it spin too far out. But in 2016, it was 2016. I'm sort of alluding to things that I tell in the story, but I was about a year and a half into this journey of where I had burned out, and I started to peel back the layers and ask these questions. Who am I? Why am I here? And I had taken after I had started a church that I led for about 10 years and a community center. And that meaningful work is also part of, like, being overly invested in that is part of what led to my burnout. And so I ended up. I had just transitioned into a new role within the denomination in which I was an ordained minister. And within it, the ones that took me to the David Hasselhoff Museum, bless them. I was a couple weeks into this new role, this idea like, oh, I'm going to change the system from within. I'm going to help other people who are on the fringes here and support innovators and things like that, help build inclusive communities. And I was like, I Got into this thing and immediately I was like, oh my goodness, what am I doing here? And I'll say this, there's so many lovely people and I worked with incredible people and I love them. So it's not a slight on a lot of the people, but there was some really toxic stuff. So within a matter of a couple weeks, this is getting your answer. It was like two weeks in, I had been invited as part of some other affiliations I had to this gathering at Harvard Divinity School, hosted by my friend Casper Terkile, who I had not known at that point. Do you know Caspar? Okay, so I've met him before. Yeah, yeah. He's written this fantastic book called I think the Power of Ritual. But his work back then was he was a student at Harvard Divinity School and with Angie Thurston. And they had done some research on really like spiritual community. Like where do people find purpose and a sense of identity and belonging and where does their creative expression and accountability basically mapping all this stuff that like traditionally religious communities stewarded and helped people kind of express, but where else is that happening? And they said everything from like CrossFit to some online Buddhist community, they would just identify different communities embodying different aspects of these things. Anyways, I got. I went to this event two weeks after I was in this job where I was a little bit like, what am I doing in this job? And suddenly I was exposed to all these people from all traditions and non traditions is really inner spiritual. And I met someone there. It was amazing. An amazing assortment of people. And that, you know, similar to like finding contemplative voices and be like, ah, that, ah, these are. Okay, these are my people. There's a sense of that there in that space. And one of the people I met, his name's Jesse Israel, he had founded something called the Big Quiet that leads like mass meditations in different places, like the top of the World Trade center, that tower or some cool art museum or whatever. Like just brings people together and there's music and maybe poetry and meditation. And I got to know him and was really curious about his intro into meditation. Long story short, that's how I came across what's called One Giant Mind, an organization based in Australia. And I began that journey and Johnny Pollard is the one who leads that initiative. And it's just been an incredible group of people.

[A]

Thank you for sharing that. I'm always so curious how a practice gets invited to someone's life, because it is often a wayward journey where you don't plan it, but Curiosity is piqued by something. You get a fragrance that hits your nostrils. You're like, what is that smell? And then, yes, it's something that draws you in closer than the next thing you know. Here you are, years later, trained as a meditation teacher in that tradition and offering it to others because of what it's offered you. So I love how one small step. I'm not going to quote Neil Armstrong, but how one small step can just lead to a vocational call like that. That's really, really beautiful. I can't wait to talk about your book now.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

The Way Home. Discovering the Hero's Journey to Wholeness at Midlife. As a fellow midlifer, it was great to read this book that really resonated with my own sense of being in place and the questions that I love to wrestle with, particularly at this stage in life, to give everyone listening just a sense of what the themes of this book are. I want to just throw out this imaginary scenario where I run into you at the grocery store. I got my arms full of ice cream, and I say, hey, Ben, I heard you wrote a book. Can you give me the lowdown of that book and you being a gentleman and not wanting the ice cream to melt all over me? You only know you have a little bit of time to explain the themes and format of the book. How would you respond to me with my arms full of ice cream?

[B]

Damn it, Paul. The last thing I want to do is sum up the book. No, I sort of joke all the time. I would rather write another whole book than do the little spiel. I say that playfully. What I do say to people, I haven't had the ice cream scenario yet, but I often say kind of the genre first, which isn't starting with the why. You're supposed to start with the why. But I say it's part memoir, part guidebook. And it's to help people who sense that maybe they've outgrown the version of their life that they're living and that there's something more out there for them. It's to help them make that migration, leave what's been familiar, move through the unknown of it all, and walk towards a fuller, freer version of themselves. So that's like the core thing I talk about, because it. It really is. Yeah, it's a book about helping people. Wholeness is in the subtitle. This whole idea of becoming, as I think of it, just, like, more true to who you really are. To encounter that deeper part of yourself that is just. That's there waiting to emerge. And yet all sorts of things in our own life and cultural conditioning and wounds that we have have sort of covered up and created this hard shell around it. And so, yeah, the ice cream's starting to melt now, I realize. But it's like, how to. When those cracks start to show, it's like trying to help people notice them and pay attention rather than kind of quickly patching it up because it seems too terrifying and, like, returning, you know, just continuing on in the status quo. I'll add one other thing. It's, for me, like, the first line is, there are a million ways to lose your heart. And I was sort of very intentional with where I started the book is I wanted to communicate this idea that even as our culture is sort of obsessed with these huge, grand stories of, like, some everything falling apart and someone losing everything, and then, like, rising from the ashes like a phoenix and making this, like, glorious comeback, like, we're obsessed with that. Whether that's like, an athlete, an actor, just some social, you know, some celebrity or prominent figure. Those are the books that sell the most, probably, like biographies. You know, everyone wants to read those. Everyone wants. The publishers want to publish those. And what I'm interested in is, what about all the ordinary, quieter ways that we sort of lose our soul, that we become estranged from ourselves? And so how in the midst of daily life, especially, say, midlife, where it might be common to be caught up in a job or have certain relational commitments, whether it's a partner or kids or whatever it might be, how do we start to go on that inner journey?

[A]

Well, that's music to my ears.

[B]

Ice cream melted.

[A]

The ice cream can be saved. I brought a cooler in the car. It's going to be just fine. Thank you. One for responding to the impossible question, because I know it is impossible. And we could talk for four hours and we wouldn't even get to the bottom of your book. So I appreciate you humoring me on that and also the point you made about how much our culture loves the reinvention of a person, whether it's real or whether it's made up to sell more books. And just the sacredness of the daily, the ordinary, where that's just not everyone's story. And I know we all come from different starting points, so it's just an acknowledgement that there's a huge spectrum of what it means to go on this journey. And that was certainly one thing I really appreciated about in your articulation of your story, was being true to your own history, your own path and not trying to aggrandize things that might be considered just part of the regular. Because there's enough of aggrandizement that's needed in our own lives because big things do happen to each of us. But this connected to me for one of the things that you name in your book around slowing down to pay attention. And I think in the ordinary dailiness of life, being able to slow down, to pay attention is the key to unlocking the door to this quest. Why for you, did that become kind of a slogan, the slowing down to pay attention on your own hero's journey?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I. Within a couple weeks of I had this epiphany moment one morning during a run, rainy morning run in Seattle where this voice within just said to me, if you don't have your heart, you have nothing. And when I heard that or sensed that, it's just like, I knew right away that it was calling out my. That there was a way I was moving through the world that would no longer work, like. Cause I was at that point. My wife and I had three young children. She had just finished grad school. I was leading three small community, like, scrappy community, startups. All very meaningful stuff. But when those words hit me, like, the first thing I knew as I walked home in the rain, crawled in the bed, and, like, didn't want to get out, was like, oh, I'm just wiped out. I'm exhausted. I'm totally burned out. And fortunately, I met with a mentor that day. It was one of the things I oddly, coincidentally had on the calendar. And I kept that one thing because my wife encouraged me to, rather than just laying in bed all day. And he was just like, you're much more buoyant than you think. So he allowed me to grieve and kind of lament the situation. Also was like, hey, like, it's not over. Like, there's something. There's a resilience in you. And the way to really claim that a sense like, that deep, that inner power to emerge from the season of burnout was through this practice of slowing down and paying attention. He bought me a journal. I had not journaled for a while. I had been like, if I was journaling or writing, it was like all this, like, either it was like writing a sermon or something, or it was scheming about some plan, looking ahead. And the invitation from him, my mentor, was like, to go inward and, like, excavate and say, like, what's going on? So that's really. That slowing down and Paying attention. So I just think, you know, I think for different people, depending on. I mean, on one level, I want to say different people depending on what their kind of. Ultimately the things they need to work through are, even if we don't know them right away, there might be different interventions, but I think at the end of the day, most of them are all some version of slowing down and paying attention. That that has to be the first step. Because if we don't take that step, we're more likely to be reacting constantly to whatever's going on around us or making a move that's about self preservation. And what I mean is like the small self preservation or just doing something that even if we think it's this, we may get obsessed about moving forward and pushing things too quickly instead of just being present to what is. So obviously there's lots of different practices to help us do this. Slowing down and paying attention, but really does, for me and others I've known, it feels like the cornerstone practice for this journey.

[A]

Wow. Well said.

[B]

Well said.

[A]

And it was fun for me as a reader to see that theme kind of be a note that'd be played at different times in your journey where there'd be these pauses. And sometimes it was, as a reader, it seemed like it was a very welcome pause to slow down. At other times, so much of life was intruding. It was really difficult to do so. And there's. This connects back to what you said about one of the things that formed you is family and relationships, I think about your best friend Nico, and your wife and your dad and your brothers and your kids, just to name a few. And one of the things that it helped me connect to was that one of the American myths is we do this alone. The great individual, the hero who goes solo, and how deep relationships are actually the biggest asset, I think, in this journey of becoming in this almost new hero's journey. Yes. How does that resonate for you about the importance of having deep relationships so that you can follow this call or rattle to what you are being asked to become?

[B]

Yeah, I appreciate the way you asked that. And I want to kind of just like take a little detour for a second and come back to that. Because, you know, you just said new hero's journey. And I interact with Joseph Campbell, the famous 20th century mythologist work in this book. Hence hero's journey. That's a term he coined. Right. As he looked at ancient myths and fairy tales, folktales, religions, he saw this common pattern that he talked about as departure, initiation return. And then he had, like, 17 steps. Okay, I have 10 steps in my book. So much more manageable. But I think what's interesting is that without getting too into it, and partly because I'm not, like, a Campbell expert, but there are critiques of. Of his take on things, and some of it's, like, too simplistic and. But one of them definitely is. It's sort of like the individualism of it. Right. So. And I think that's, you know, so he. Looking at certain stories, it would say, well, Campbell's highlighting these things, and look how they're sort of all about this single character doing their own thing. Even if they do get support at some point, they're very. It's all about this individual. And so sort of intentionally in my book, but mostly because it was true to my journey, and that really was the guiding thing for this book. It wasn't like I set out, like, with Campbell's book in my hand. It was like, how do I live these steps? No, I live something. And then I found his work as a helpful lens for it.

[A]

Right, right, right.

[B]

But there's a sense that this idea of even having Hero's Journey in the title, it's sort of. It's a little bit of a Trojan horse. I say that intentionally. It's almost like, kind of deceptive in the way that one. It might appeal to people who, like, want to do what we were talking about earlier, this superheroic thing, have this massive comeback, this epic triumph. Like, it might appeal to that. But if you read the book, you find out, actually, no, it's like a different thing you're being invited into. And not only that, it might also appeal to this rugged individualism that's common in our society and promoted and praised. Right. Like, oh, I started the thing alone in my garage, and now it's a billion dollar company. Like, amazing how many details we can edit out of these stories. Right, right. So that's a little bit of my detour. But coming back to your question is. Yeah, this is, like, fundamentally, this is a journey to be undertaken in community. I'm thinking about Henri Nouwen. He talks about solitude and community and sort of. I mean, is there a third thing he talks about there? But there's like, sort of this, the balance, and needing to hold those together. And this is a journey that only you can take. Like, there's inner work that only you can do. No one else can do it for you. No guru, no podcast host, no teacher. You have to do it. Okay. And you can't live vicariously through anyone else. You have to do it. And that being said, there's never a single moment. There's never a single moment in another sense that you're alone. Because guess what? Like, others have gone on this before. Others are embarking on this right now. There will be others in the future. So you're connected almost in a spiritual sense to those across time. But then also, it is critical for a number of reasons. To have people by your side, to have the help of an anam Kara, a soul friend, to have someone who is, like, lovingly walking with you, who will hold up a mirror to help you see what you can't see about yourself. Not because they're sitting there and calling it out, but there's a sense that they. I think this is a Rilke line, like, they. It's like they protect and border your solitude.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Like they help you be alone, but they're with you. So, yeah, there are multiple characters in my own story, and I just think it's really important. And those people might. They might be different people in different seasons of life. And for those who are like, I'm in something right now, and I feel really alone, guess what? There's also, like, the truth is, like, just keep walking and those people will make themselves known. They will emerge. They will be provided. They're there for you.

[A]

That's beautiful. And if we're lucky, that person will be David Hasselhoff.

[B]

And there's someone out there who's saying, I'll be ready. I'll be ready. Like, that's the theme song from Baywatch. Okay, someone's out there. They'll be ready. Your lifeguard.

[A]

There you go. It all comes back to the hof. But as you were sharing that, I mean, this line from your wife that gave me such beautiful pause was when you ask her what advice that she could offer, and she says, get quiet. And I could just feel the chills. And that wise perspective of intimate relationship, who can see us in ways that we sometimes can't see ourselves. Or they can say something so precise that it's the medicine you need. So that just image of your wife Sherry, just saying, get quiet. Can you speak to how that, like, immediately impacted you in that moment?

[B]

Yeah, just the slight context for it is like, I was basically on, like, my third round of ignoring the call that I had received. Like, this call that came to me. If you don't have your heart, you have nothing. And this invitation to embark on this journey towards wholeness. And I, for various reasons, Kept reverting to my previous patterns, which were, like, an obsession with achievement and really, like, being a perfectionist and performing to please others as if that would earn me love. Like, this pattern that was deeply ingrained in me for a whole host of reasons, many of which. It's like part of the journey is like, becoming reconciled to that and extending kindness to your former self and to those parts of yourself. But here it was like I had relapsed again, and I was, like, getting all ambitious about a particular project as if I had. I had gone on the journey. I had become whole again. I was ready to go, but really, I had just been kind of skimming, dipping in, dipping out. And she could sense, as we were walking one day by the cherry blossoms at University of Washington, we visited the library there, which looks like something out of Harry Potter, just this beautiful scene. And I was like, well, what do you think? I had this plan. I was going to do this thing with this project. And she just. I was like, what would your advice be to me? I was thinking, give me some branding advice. Or, like, who should I talk to? Right? Or, like, what's my next step? And she just says, get quiet. Which, like, had such a double meaning because one of the things I was asking about was this, like, podcast project I had been running and was looking to, like, grow. So it ended up being literally, like, turn the mic off is what I needed to do. But the deeper message was a reminder and, like, calling me back to the solitude, the stillness that had been there even just a couple years earlier when my journey began. And, I mean, I absolutely. It's like, right away, I mean, just the two words, and they just carried so much. And they carried so much of her knowing me and knowing my patterns and seeing them, and yet graciously, like, graciously, like, calling. I mean, it's like not calling me out. It's like calling me back home to myself. And, you know, thank you very much. It, like, sent me deeper, right? It was very clear. It's like, oh, I've. I gotta go deeper now. The descent continues. But, yeah, such a gift to have. Have her especially alongside and not. I mean, part of it, like, this can be kind of terrifying when your partner or dear friend starts, like, going on this inner journey. It's like, how's that going to affect us and our dynamic? So her strength and tenderness to me throughout the whole thing was just, like, such a gift.

[A]

What a gift. What a gift. Thank you for sharing that. As you're probably noticing, I'm There is so much that we could talk about. So I'm skipping over a bunch of things, but just because I think everyone who this book calls to should read it if this is the journey you're at in life or you're supporting somebody who's going through major life transformation of some sort or a quest without a sense of where it's going. And so there's just a few things that are just, like, percolating for me that I want to talk specifically with you about. So just this is why it's.

[B]

I love it.

[A]

It's great, not linear. And we're just popping all over the place. One of the major things that I really appreciated about your book was about rituals. Father Richard Rohr, the Franciscan, talks about how we are such a richly starved culture in the States. And in your book, you share a number of the rituals that you have participated in. Some that have been kind of are, I would say, are maybe more traditional from a lineage, and some that are more curated from your own life experiences. Talk about the power of ritual in your life. What is it about ritual that you think offers something completely different on this path that is supported by relationships, but there's something about how one shows up interiorly to embark on a ritual. And I say this knowing that tomorrow is Ash Wednesday in the Christian tradition, which is a beautiful ritual in its own right, and knowing that there's such a vast expression of rituals. What is it about rituals for you that you, when you embark on, that you. You recognize as a threshold?

[B]

Yeah, this idea that rituals are an interruption of the sacred into the profane. And there's all sorts of folks who've talked about this historically. So it's a way of opening ourselves up to something more or orienting ourselves to the world in a way in which we're receptive to deeper truths and realities about what it means to be human and to be here and be. Now, rituals, they can drop us into our body in a deep way, or they can make us feel, in a sense, boundless and connected to everything. And sometimes they can do both those at once. And, yeah, rituals can help us be, at their core, just help us be more present to life in all of its simplicity and complexity. So for me, that can sound like, oh, what's he actually talking about here? I say all that and I try to. I show people through, whether it's like, working with my dreams or it's meditation or it's wandering, wandering in the wild, like walking in nature and treating that in a conversational kind of way, or it's something called a death lodge, which is either symbolic or actual place where you can mark a severance from a previous version of yourself and treat that with. Bring all your grief and gratitude to that. So there is a whole spectrum. And the way I try to share them in the book, and I think this is important, is sometimes this stuff is absolutely ridiculous. Okay. Like, there's a certain level you have to become like a child and be playful. You know, I think through so many of the rituals that I was engaged in, especially the times in nature, it was like I was like, oh, I know this. I know who I am right now. I'm like, my kids were younger than us. I'm like my 10 year old son, like waving a stick in the air. Is it a sword? Oh, now it's a. It's a bow, now it's a spear. It can become whatever this sense of just like removing these layers of kind of, I ought to act this way. And I think, by the way, religion, sometimes, religious practice can sometimes almost make these things seem like they need to be really formal. And yet the best versions of them also, they're extremely sensory. Right. And we still see that in Ash Wednesday. Right. You're gonna see people walking around with a smudge on their head or certain traditions that have incense or candles or even song. Right. But allowing ourselves to be in our bodies and just kind of really relax, be playful, have intention. But when you get into that more playful, childlike state, your imagination expands and you're more open and receptive to subtle impulses and messages that. Yeah, who knows if it comes from your soul or God or the universe or. It's like something weird you ate last night. It doesn't really matter. Matter. Let's pay some attention to it. So that's kind of my thing on ritual. I guess I'll stop there because I'd love to hear what you're thinking.

[A]

Yeah, well, thanks for that. You sparked this memory for me of last year. I had mentioned Ash Wednesday and I took my kids to an Ash Wednesday service and my daughter loves it so much. She's like a bubbly elementary school kid, but she approaches this getting ashes on your forehead with reverence. And we're gonna die someday. And just. It's kind of wild to me how much it resonates for her. And then there's my son, who is more naturally that way, and the regular. And when we approached getting the ashes, he refused. And the reason he refused was he had this heart, this rainbow heart, temporary tattoo that he had already put on his forehead, had been there for, like, a week. We couldn't get him to take it off, and he refused to let his heart be ashy. And I was so taken by their message to me about this tradition, this ritual from my tradition that I love so much, and just opening it up to that childlike wonder that you talked about. And that playfulness of, like, why would I put ash on my rainbow heart, dad? Like, that's. I'm not going to ruin this for. And I think it really helped, like, just crack open for me. Like, of course. Like, how can I approach these things with more playfulness while honoring the deep legacy and reverence within it?

[B]

It's like he. He adapted it for himself. Right. And, like, allowed his imagination based on his present experience and his interpretation of. Like, that's so, like, not out of any sort of duty, but just, like, okay, where am I at? I mean, I just love that. And there's going to be a lot of confusion tomorrow because it's going to be Valentine's Day, too. So, you know, the two coming together.

[A]

Yeah, I can't wait. I think it's so fantastic. And I want to just kind of zero in on the death lodge for a second, because I don't necessarily. You can give away whatever you want to give away from that piece in your book, but this piece, for me, about ritual or when transformation is occurring and different levels of awareness of what's happening, but that something that seems to be a pattern is that things that once gave life need to be shedded. They become heavy. They need to be let go of. How do you. In those moments, how do you experience that shedding or that letting go? Like, I'm thinking of the death lodge. But if something else comes up for you that would be more pertinent to talk about right now, how do you experience that when you recognize, oh, this is no longer mine to carry, whether it's an identity or a task or work? Does that make sense?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. So I think what's amazing about ritual is there's a way that they can serve as a statement of intention or desire, or, like, we are inviting reality to respond to something that we're declaring or expressing symbolically. So in that sense, you know what I'm getting at? There is there's a way that, like, maybe. So at certain times, maybe I hadn't moved through something yet. I hadn't shed the layers yet. And yet it was saying, I'm ready to. I want to. And by enacting something in A ritual form. It's a way of saying, like, really, will you send your supportive powers, Divine one, or universe or soul? Will you enable me to really have the courage to move forward in this direction? Right. There are other forms of ritual that are. It's almost responsive. And it's like, on the other side of things, it's like, I have. Wow, I have done that work. I have shed this version of myself, and now I'm just like, I'm making it clear to myself. And usually it is to yourself. It's like, I'm. I'm putting a marker in the sand saying, like, I've crossed this. I'm not going back. There's no turning back. And so those are really important because they give us. I mean, both of those orientations in terms of ritual are powerful because they give us that sense of courage, and they give us, you know, they embolden us to continue on the journey, to keep letting go or to begin letting go. They give us a reference point when, you know, so much of this journey is you're in the dark, you're wandering, you're in the unknown. And so to have some markers that are like, oh, okay, no, like, there's some progress happening, not like onward and upward, like, everything's getting better, but like, no movement's happening. I'm doing the work. Ritual can really facilitate that. And so my own. This death lodge experience, where it was meeting, I met up with a friend. She facilitated this ceremony for me, and I went out on a walk in the woods. Yet without giving it away, it was a profound moment for me of, I would say more than anything, I realized, wow, like, I have severed my sense of identity from this thing. This thing being my sort of formal, institutional religious role and some of the affiliations there. Now, interestingly, it was like a severance at a soul or a heart level, realizing, I'm not going to be guided by this anymore. On the surface level of life, a lot still looked the same. To be fair, I still was in the job that was affiliated with this thing, but it was a way of me marking through this ritual that the way that I would engage it and show up in it would be out of allegiance to this truer part of myself that was emerging, as opposed to small self and his old patterns sort of timidly moving through the world. So does that get at what you're asking?

[A]

Yes, 100%. 100%. Thank you for that. And what came up to me as you were sharing that was thinking about the grief that needs to Be grieved over the losses that need to be grieved over in that. Even if it's intentional, even if it's a desire or it's an. Or in the aftermath of something. How do you see grief and ritual being good bedfellows and the necessity of that?

[B]

We don't have a lot of places in our culture or we can fall apart. We have to keep it together. And then I think, especially if you're a white male person in this world, it's like there's all sorts of things that have reinforced this idea of keeping your shit together and being strong and this certain illusion and misconception of what strength looks like.

[A]

Basically. Be David Hasselhoff.

[B]

Yeah, be David Hasselhoff. I mean, that's. It's actually. I love that you bring that back. There's something. It's like. No, that's a symbol. There's so many symbols. Like, you think of our superheroes and celebrities, certain characters. Anyways, like. Yeah. So there's a way in which we've really. We've, like gotten rid of spaces or we just haven't allowed for them. Okay. Where we can express grief. So ritual, it opens the door to that, whether that's individually or it's like in a group setting. And I think there's more of those, specifically in the area of men's work. There's more spaces for that. People doing illumen and other things like that. But in terms of why they. Yeah, they work well together is we might not. It's like in some ways, like when you haven't cried in a while, it's almost like you don't know how to cry anymore. You don't know how to allow yourself to cry. Like, let's just use that image. And so to have a ritual or set apart space where you can be undone or shed layers or be playful, you know, just like you can start to let go. It allows those. Those surface things that we put on to protect ourselves to and to make us look strong and fit in all. Like, we start to shed that in ritual space. And it allows for an in breaking of something else. And so that in that moment where we're both like, sort of either verbally or in our minds, acknowledging the grief we have, we're also in a setting that enables us to express it, which is different than like, I'm at a coffee shop, I'm journaling, I'm writing a few things down, but there's all these people here. It's probably. I'm going to like, bottle things up. I'm not going to have an expression of grief that's going to match what I'm writing down. Say I'm journaling about that. But like in a wild space or around a backyard bonfire with people or all sorts of different settings, like we can by design just allow them to be those spaces where we can open up and it might take some practice. Like and if we don't have the emotional expression that maybe we think would be correlated to the grief we're expressing, that's also okay. Like we don't have to force it and we might find ourselves surprised by the moments that the, the emotional expression of the grief comes forward.

[A]

Yeah, I'm thinking too as you, as you're saying that like there's no one who could be like wow, they're really good at grief. Like they, they do it for 10 minutes and then they're done. Like it's surprising, it's messy, that's uncurated. I've been having this experience the past nine months where I'll just start crying while I'm running where like I'll be in my body and things will start to rise up. Then I start to grieve over of them and I just think about playfully enjoy these people driving by me. Like there's goes a runner who's just tear streaked cheeks, you know what's going on in their life. Right.

[B]

Right now he's on mile 18. He's exhausted. Actually just started running an hour ago or a, you know, a mile ago. That's it.

[A]

That's it exactly. In this space of that you talk about in your book. And I really struggle to think of anyone else who talked about this about the re entry after ritual or retreat. And it's such a tender space. And there's something about how one is received after going into the wilderness, going to some sort of quest, going on some sort of retreat where they're going with the intent for something potentially big to happen or to be undone, whether it's seen exteriorly or interiorly and how to be tender towards yourself as you re enter and how others can receive you in that way. I don't hear it talked about or written about enough about what an impact that can make for whatever seeds were planted or whatever got undone to continue to work below the surface. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts about that re entry period and the kind of space that can be held so that interior work, the mystery of that work can continue to go through the community that is your home. Community.

[B]

Yeah, that's a great observation. I think we. There's a way in which that last third of the book, which is the return, the rising to wholeness. It's like the three chapters are return home, give your gift, be still. There's a way in which that was like the hardest section to write because, yeah, we don't see a lot of treatment of that. We treat it just about as like. Much as like movies do, which is usually it's like the last five minutes of the movie or the book you read is like everything's wrapped up and resolved neatly and there's no sense of, well, what's reentry look like, Right?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[B]

And there's a sense that it's compared to other aspects of the journey. There is like, let's be honest, it's like it's ordinary. It's profoundly ordinary. I mean, I think in a way the whole journey is. We should remember that. But returning home, it's like, how do I express what I discovered? How do I carry that forward? This is amidst like day to day life. What an incredible challenge. And so to try to talk about the contours of that. Yes, it's tricky and yet it's something that anyone who's gone on a journey, and whether that was facilitated ultimately by some wilderness quest or, I mean, let's be honest, more and more people going on doing psychedelic stuff and coming back from those experiences and trying to translate it, there's a lot of people who are trying to figure it out. And if we don't have ways of re entry then any benefits gain, it's really easy to revert back to our previous patterns. So the challenge becomes how do I carry it forward? And also not in a way that's like judging everything around me, that demands that everything around me change for me. No, because if you've really done the work, you realize that your responsibility is first and foremost to yourself. And any sort of discoveries and self love and compassion and insight, all that should be radiating out of you, not in a needy or demanding way. So I just think to get really sort of practical, I think it's helpful for people to say, think about intentional ways of relating, like being in relationship, and just be aware of how it's going to impact you. And don't be obsessed with telling everyone everything, but more just be focused on how you show up. That might mean better boundaries in certain relationships. It might be the end of some relationships. It might be investing in ones that you know will help you carry forward this soulful. Version of yourself. Another thing can be think of a project. And this was really something that the guides from my Animas Valley, that's the organization Bill Plotkins Org, they really encourage this work of like having a project, something that could be life size and like lifelong, or it could be very brief. But it's a way of staying connected to the thread of yourself that you discovered and it's a way of expressing it. And it could be anything from like gardening to painting to beekeeping to writing to volunteering somewhere. I mean, the possibilities are endless. But you know, you don't even have to tell anyone else, you know, that it's one way in which you are expressing something of who you are that you discovered in the darkness or in the wild. So yeah, I think you're really right to hit on this fact that the re entry process, it's its own grueling phase of the journey. And if we really want to maximize the benefit of all the hell we went through, it is important to not just start to relax, but still be very intentional about how we are moving through the world when we return.

[A]

So good. A question that you leave us with at the end of the book is an important question to ask ourselves. You know, you share this incredible journey you've gone on, the number of ways you've been undone or you've been expanded or deepened, whatever. Language doesn't quite capture what occurs in these processes. But you asked this question that is necessary to ask of what myth are you currently living? And so I want to ask you that today. Ben, what? After this process and then writing it down in your book, and maybe you're a new season of life, maybe you're not, but what myth do you see yourself currently in right now?

[B]

Yeah, this is the thing there I love that you mentioned. It's like it is something that's profoundly like this journey home to yourself and to who you truly are. It's also like unnamable. Like there's a sense of like, how do I put this into words? And that's where the mythological portion, like the mythologizing, it's so helpful because you look back and you can see, you start to just let the stories of the journey rise to the surface and you start to see connections and you see continuity and you see transformation. So what's interesting is I would say that I have emerged from this phase of the journey. Oh, and by the way, this is a spoiler, but the last chapter, the epilogue, is called Begin Again because I believe that you go through something and there's always another invitation to keep growing, to keep evolving, right? So to get somewhere and be settled and be like, oh, we're good to go. You know what? You're probably then shutting off other parts of yourself that want, at different points in your life, want to be activated because they're going to be important for you or the world. So there's always beginning again. But when I look kind of across, it's like Ben, Ben at the beginning and Ben on the other side of this. Like, it's amazing how much it's like, there's still similar things. Like, I talk about, like, I define myself in a lot of ways by, like, I make things happen and I get shit done and I get people together and I achieve and blah, blah, blah. Like, there's a way in which. But that was like I was doing those things out of a sense of, like, I was. It was like I was a prisoner to them. And it also meant. It was like I was squeezing. I was willing to, like, let my heart get squeezed out, right. And ignore those moments where I needed to get quiet because I was trying to earn love and approval through all these other things. Well, on the other side, it's just a whole equation. It's like the whole thing is flipped. It's like what I discovered at the end of the day is that I am loved or that I am love, that I have so much love to give and now I'm able to live. I think practices are profoundly important aspect of this to keep us tethered to this reality. But I'm able to live out of that place. And guess what? There's certain parts of me that still, yeah, I wrote a book. It actually takes a certain amount of perseverance and dedication to do that. Right. But it wasn't the drive for success and achievement that previously governed how I functioned. It's more coming out of this sense of, like, this is something that I know I need to do from a deep level. And fortunately, some of the skills my ego developed, like, when the ego is in service to that. That soul, then guess what? We're able to make our contribution. So, you know, just a side note on that, like, this whole book, I wrote this whole thing, I wrote it in the morning, like, early. And then I lost a job. And so I had some time, like two months to finish it. But I. I didn't show anyone. I didn't try to get an agent. I didn't think about getting published. I knew I needed to do it. Just, like, enjoy the process and the craft. And when I was done, it was like, maybe this is just for my kids. Maybe it's just for my friends. Maybe I just. I self publish. Like, it was this total openness. And then I got a clues that it was like, no, try to get this out in the world. And doors have opened. And I don't mean to just, like, say, well, everything's easy, but there's a sense of I am cooperating with what I'm being called to do. So coming back to your question about the myth, it's like, I am still living out. You know, I'm trying to live out what I discovered. And whether that's writing this thing and sharing it with the world or it's literally. I mean, this last year, I had a. Last year, I had a stint of five months running my brother's tap room. He owns a brewery running one of his tap rooms. And I was, like, serving beer and food and running around, and I still actually show up and work there. I got, like, a white rag hanging out of the back of my pocket. I'm busing tables and serving people. And to me, I'm just delighting in that. And I think younger, former version of myself would be like, what do people think? Here's these. Oh, they must think I, like, whatever. You know, I'm 43, and I'm doing this. Like, there's just such a sense of. I don't know, like, aware of, like, that each moment might call for some different contribution. And I'm open to what those might be. And together, fortunately, with Sheree, my wife, is like, this sense of being at home, like, comfortable with the unknown, because, like, we went through this grueling journey, and so the unknown is no longer something I need to be terrified about. It's like, it has all sorts of gifts to give so that, you know, I'm glad you weren't holding ice cream during that part, because that would have been all over your shirt. But that's. You know, the myth keeps unfolding. The myth keeps unfolding. Yeah.

[A]

It would have been worth it. I mean, everything you just shared there about the unfolding nature of the myth that you find yourself in. And just that word that came to my mind as you were sharing, that was, like, you're in the flow, and there's a different attentiveness to what you're being allured to do versus, like, compelling yourself to do. And I feel like that energy is in the book. As a reader, you feel this sense of this was first and foremost for you and as a reader of many books, I put down a lot of books that I start because I'm just kind of. I get. I'm like this. It feels there's an inauthenticity to it or it just doesn't ring true. And that's totally okay because that just means that book's not for me. And this is where I felt like your book was for me. And that sense of, like, this was important for you to write and the gift of sharing it was part of being in that flow. And so I want to recommend to everyone just the Way Home. Discovering the Hero's Journey to Wholeness at Midlife by Ben Kot, for those who this book calls to these themes that this calls to that are listening right now. And Ben, we always like to close our conversations by keeping it embodied. So I want to ask you, if you were going to pair this conversation with a drink, what would be your drink of choice and why?

[B]

Hmm. Yeah, I'm going in for that. I'm going inward. Let's see here. I'm feeling like. Actually I love craft beer and coffee. Really good coffee. However, this moment feel like a nice peppermint tea. You didn't see that coming. A peppermint tea.

[A]

I did it.

[B]

I don't know why. Maybe it's just because I had too much coffee already today. But it just sounds like kind of the right. Like a freshness. It gives, you know, sort of like attentiveness. Yeah. So give it a try. Let me know what you think.

[A]

I like it. Perk up the taste buds with a little peppermint foreign. Thank you for listening to this slow cooked episode of Contemplify. May its delights spark, wonder and may any sour patches be sweetened by their folly. Head over to contemplify.com to find the show notes for this episode. Sign up for the monthly Contemplify non required reading list and also the weekly contemplative practice Lo fi and hushed. If you are enjoying Contemplify, rate and review it on your podcast player. The Internet tells me this helps spread the contemplative cheer. The theme song for Contemplify is called Langside by Charles Ends and Darren Hoveus. Fellas, thanks as always and of course I am looking for forward to bringing you more musings and more conversations with contemplatives kindling the examined life in the world. Until then, be well.