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

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.

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)

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.

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.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

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)

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)

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

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

End of Summary