#888 - David Sutcliffe - How To Stop Betraying Yourself & Be More Authentic

Summary

Modern Wisdom - Episode #888: David Sutcliffe on How To Stop Betraying Yourself & Be More Authentic

In this enlightening episode of Modern Wisdom, host Chris Williamson engages in a profound conversation with David Sutcliffe, delving deep into the concepts of authenticity, self-betrayal, and personal growth. Drawing from David’s extensive experience in Hollywood and his transition into somatic psychotherapy, the discussion offers valuable insights into living a truthful and empowered life.

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1. Defining Authenticity

David begins by exploring the essence of authenticity, emphasizing its alignment with truth and presence. He acknowledges the challenges of being authentically oneself in various social contexts, such as the workplace, where masks are often worn.

David Sutcliffe [00:20]: "For me, authenticity is really just truth. Can I be in the truth of who I am?"

He underscores the importance of discerning when and where to express authenticity, recognizing that complete transparency isn't always feasible. Authenticity, for David, involves being present in the moment and embodying one’s true self, which he believes leads to an empowering life.

2. Authenticity and Confidence

The conversation shifts to the interplay between authenticity and confidence. David explains how standing by one’s authentic self fosters confidence, creating a positive feedback loop. Conversely, living out of authenticity can erode self-confidence and obscure true self-understanding.

David Sutcliffe [05:16]: "The more you do, the more confidence you have in it. And exactly. The less you do it, the more you think you're lost."

He draws inspiration from independent filmmaker John Cassavetes, highlighting the necessity of trusting one’s intuition to achieve genuine success.

3. Reconnecting with Your Authentic Self

David shares practical exercises to help individuals reconnect with their authentic selves. One such method involves listing past instances where following intuition led to positive outcomes, reinforcing trust in one’s inner guidance.

David Sutcliffe [07:30]: "When I have a strong intuition, I ask for signs, and almost always I get them."

This approach emphasizes the role of faith and synchronicity in aligning with one’s true self, encouraging listeners to seek and recognize these internal signs.

4. The Origins of Self-Betrayal in Childhood

A significant portion of the discussion centers on how self-betrayal begins in childhood. David explains that children often suppress their true selves to gain approval and stay connected with caregivers, establishing patterns of self-betrayal that persist into adulthood.

David Sutcliffe [16:07]: "The primary survival strategy for any child is to stay in connection and favor with their caregivers so they have no choice but to betray themselves."

This early conditioning leads individuals to prioritize external validation over internal truth, making self-betrayal a habitual response in relationships.

5. Relationships as Mirrors of Childhood Patterns

David delves into how these childhood patterns manifest in adult relationships. He illustrates how unresolved issues from early life often get projected onto partners, creating cycles of misunderstanding and resentment.

David Sutcliffe [20:00]: "My conception of women was I don't trust them and they don't care what I feel. And so we all come into relationships with those kind of distortions."

Recognizing and addressing these projections is crucial for fostering genuine connections and breaking free from inherited patterns of self-betrayal.

6. Authenticity in Relationships: Discernment vs. Oversharing

Balancing authenticity in relationships involves discerning what to share and what to keep private. David emphasizes the importance of being present and honest without overwhelming partners with every detail.

David Sutcliffe [21:28]: "If you're not present with her, then she's not going to be happy, she's not going to feel safe."

He advocates for selective vulnerability, where openness fosters intimacy without compromising personal boundaries or creating dependency.

7. Confronting and Mitigating Fear

Fear is identified as a fundamental barrier to authenticity. David discusses how early experiences and cultural influences perpetuate fear, which hinders genuine self-expression and connection.

David Sutcliffe [10:18]: "One of the practices that I've done and I encourage other people to do is to constantly put yourself in situations where you're confronting your fear and then go through it and feel the panic, feel everything that comes up."

He recommends facing fears directly through action and exposure, helping individuals realize that many fears are unfounded illusions that can be overcome through conscious effort.

8. Self-Compassion and Overcoming the Lower Self

Self-compassion emerges as a critical component of authenticity. David explains that internalized beliefs of being bad or unworthy often stem from childhood repressions, making self-compassion challenging.

David Sutcliffe [27:42]: "Most people have to some degree of shame. And so that part of us that thinks it's bad, it wants to continue to tell ourselves the story that we are bad."

Overcoming these beliefs requires significant inner work to dismantle shame and embrace one’s inherent goodness, facilitating a kinder and more authentic relationship with oneself.

9. Evolving Leadership and Personal Growth

The discussion touches on how leadership styles evolve with personal growth. David contrasts dominant, authoritarian leadership with prestigious, empathetic leadership, suggesting that the latter fosters collective growth and harmony.

David Sutcliffe [37:26]: "We need that good coach that can not only push us but also understand and support us. It's about balance."

This evolution mirrors the personal journey from self-centered ambition to a more service-oriented, compassionate approach to leadership and personal endeavors.

10. David’s Personal Journey and Realizations

David shares his transformative journey from a successful acting career to somatic psychotherapy. He recounts the moment of dissatisfaction despite external success and how finding his true passion led to genuine fulfillment.

David Sutcliffe [60:05]: "I had this feeling. It's like, I don't want this. And I didn't know what that was. It was like, I don't want this."

This realization underscores the episode’s central theme: true authenticity and fulfillment come from aligning with one’s inner truth rather than conforming to external expectations or superficial successes.

11. Embracing Presence and Vulnerability

Presence, as discussed by David, is about embracing all aspects of one’s emotional landscape without judgment. He advocates for vulnerability as a strength that fosters deep connections and personal growth.

David Sutcliffe [73:03]: "Presence is an embodied experience. It's the willingness to feel everything inside of us."

By allowing oneself to fully experience emotions, individuals can break free from repression and cultivate a more authentic and empowered existence.

12. Final Reflections on Authenticity and Growth

In concluding their conversation, David and Chris reflect on the challenges and rewards of pursuing authenticity. They emphasize the importance of embracing both strengths and vulnerabilities to lead a balanced and fulfilling life.

David Sutcliffe [85:48]: "All people need is for their feelings to be validated."

This validation fosters a safe space for individuals to explore and express their true selves, paving the way for genuine personal transformation and meaningful connections.

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Key Takeaways:

• Authenticity as Truth: Being true to oneself involves honest self-expression and presence in the moment.

• Overcoming Self-Betrayal: Early life experiences often create patterns of self-betrayal that persist into adulthood, affecting relationships and self-esteem.

• Balancing Vulnerability: Authentic relationships require a balance between openness and personal boundaries, fostering deep connections without overwhelming reliance.

• Confronting Fear: Facing and overcoming inherent fears through action leads to increased confidence and authenticity.

• Evolving Leadership: Personal growth involves transitioning from authoritarian to empathetic leadership, fostering collective harmony and growth.

• Embracing Presence: True presence demands embracing all emotions and vulnerabilities, leading to a more empowered and authentic life.

David Sutcliffe’s insights offer a roadmap for individuals seeking to live more authentically by understanding and overcoming the barriers of self-betrayal, fear, and societal expectations.

Notable Quotes:

• David Sutcliffe [00:20]: "For me, authenticity is really just truth. Can I be in the truth of who I am?"

• David Sutcliffe [05:16]: "The more you do, the more confidence you have in it. And exactly. The less you do it, the more you think you're lost."

• David Sutcliffe [10:18]: "One of the practices that I've done and I encourage other people to do is to constantly put yourself in situations where you're confronting your fear and then go through it and feel the panic, feel everything that comes up."

• David Sutcliffe [16:07]: "The primary survival strategy for any child is to stay in connection and favor with their caregivers so they have no choice but to betray themselves."

• David Sutcliffe [73:03]: "Presence is an embodied experience. It's the willingness to feel everything inside of us."

• David Sutcliffe [85:48]: "All people need is for their feelings to be validated."

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For more insights and resources on living authentically and overcoming self-betrayal, visit David Sutcliffe’s website at DavidSutcliffe.com.

Transcript

[A]

How do you come to think about the role of authenticity in a good life?

[B]

Well, I guess I try to be as authentic as I can. I don't know if that's a thing that we can ever do perfectly. And we have to be discerning about where we want to be authentic. But as long as we're making choices, meaning I'm not going to show up at work and always be my authentic self. There's always a mask that we're wearing. But if I'm doing that consciously, then I can still maintain my authenticity. For me, authenticity is really just truth. Can I be in the truth of who I am? Which takes a lot of work because we don't always know who we are. And we have habitual thought patterns and responses to life that cause us. I mean, we're authentic to those. But to be authentic to ourselves, to go after exactly what it is, we want to be present all the way, maybe that's another way to define it. Being present in the moment, which is a really hard thing to do. Always being present. There's so many ways that we leave. Whether it's through distraction or drugs or alcohol or pornography or we get lost in our mind. So part of authenticity for me is just being embodied. Being here, being present, being in the moment, telling the truth as best we can. And I think that's empowering. I think that leads to an empowering life. And it's really what I try to teach people. How do we find our authentic self? I know it's an overused word, but I think that's what we're all longing for. Because when we're aligned in some way within ourselves, we're true to ourself. And that feels good. So even if things go badly, at least we're true to who we are. We're making our own mistakes. Not, you know, some. Not being guided by some idea of who we're supposed to be or what we're supposed to be doing. And I've certainly done plenty of that in my life. I made a commitment early on. If I'm gonna make mistakes, I want them to be my own. Mistakes I wanna learn from.

[A]

Oh, that's such a cool idea. The idea of making a mistake and it not even being yours.

[B]

Painful. Painful. Well, I learned this as an actor because when I first started out in Hollywood, you know, you get there and you think that everybody is, you know, knows what they're doing and they're smarter than you. At least that's what I thought. And, you know, so you listen to A lot of directors, you know, tell you how to play scenes. And it got to a point where, you know, I would. I would see the scene and I thought, yeah, I don't think that was the right choice. Now it's my face on the screen, right? So if it's not resonating, people aren't thinking about the director, they're thinking about me. So there's a certain point I just decided to take ownership of everything. And occasionally you'd get into conflict with directors, but the choice was I got to do it my way. I want to listen, of course, to what people are saying and take that information in. But ultimately I have to do it my way and live or die by it.

[A]

Is there an interesting feedback loop between authenticity and confidence? It seems like in order to be able to sort of stand up for yourself, to have faith that your intuition or your instinct is right, you need to be confident in it. And then presumably, the more that you do that, the more it feeds back into confidence. But as with most things that kind of spiral, they also spiral in the opposite direction, which is the longer that you live out of authenticity, the less confidence you have in being authentic and the less you know what authenticity is, which makes it harder to become so on and so forth. It seems to me like that's the kind of dynamic that goes on.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I might use the word faith, having faith in your inner impulses, you know, to. To stay in the. The television and movie acting references. There's a. When I was growing up, I was a big fan of John Cassavetes, and he was the kind of the original independent filmmaker. And his films were wild and raw and crazy. And he had a great career as a mainstream Hollywood actor, but his films were just something else entirely. And he had this quote about all these people, they go to Hollywood and they start getting into commercial projects, and they say one day that they're going to do something creative, they're going to do something artistic, do something true to themselves, but they never do. Because once you buy into that and exactly what you're saying, once you stop listening to those innermost impulses, you. You start to forget that they're there. And so that had a huge impact on me. And I've done my best. Not perfectly. I don't think any of us do it perfectly. To live by that, to live by that inner intuition, those inner impulses like that, that. That thing that is inside me, there's a knowingness that we all have, and only we know It. And if we start asking everybody, is this okay, is that okay? They're going to be. Maybe they'll be able to give you some legitimate reflection. But at the end of the day, I think anybody who's successful at a certain point, they stood alone. They just went on their own intuition, their own gut, and they took a risk, and that's how they became successful. You have to follow it. And the more you do, the more confidence you. You have in it. And exactly. The less you do it, the more, I think, lost you become.

[A]

What would you say to somebody that feels like they haven't tapped into that authenticity in a while? Is there. Is there anything. Have you got any prescriptions or advice for how someone can begin to start listening to that little voice that maybe has been drowned out for a long time?

[B]

Well, this happens with my clients all the time. And I give them an exercise and I have them list, like, things in their life where they had an intuition and they did it and it worked out. And you'd be surprised how long a list everybody has, Right? So you're trying to encourage that kind of thinking, but it requires faith. It requires a deep faith. And, you know, I'm a big believer in synchronicity. I mean, just. I don't know how it works, but it seems to be real on some level. I don't know if it's just a. A trick of my mind or. You know, back in the day, they used to look in the fire, right? And you look in the fire for a sign, but what are you really looking for? You're looking for your own unconscious to be reflected back in the fire. So you can trust what you see, that it's not. It's not an image necessarily in the fire that you're seeing that's separate from you. You look at the fire long enough, you can get into a meditative state. And suddenly your own unconscious is going to be projected onto that fire. And the thing that you see is something that's actually you. And so practices like that, like meditation, I think, are very valuable. Or the thing that I do, it's like with Mexico, you know, I'm going to move down to Mexico. Why am I moving to Mexico? That's crazy. I don't speak Spanish. My wife speaks Spanish. But it just seemed like such a big leap. But I asked for signs. I do this every time I ask for signs. And I got them. Like the week after I asked for signs. The three people that I know in Mexico all came up in conversation with strangers. It's like we ended up knowing. I'm like, you know that guy? I know that guy. Yeah. He's a friend of mine, Lives in Mexico. Like that in the same week. That kind of shit happens to me all the fucking time. I can't explain it, Chris. I don't know what it is. I'm sure there's a lot of doubters out there, but that's how I do it. When I have a strong intuition, I ask for signs, and almost always I get them.

[A]

Is that, for want of a better term, is that a mature man's game, not a young man's game?

[B]

Well, I think so. I mean, I've been around. I'm 55. I've lived a life, ups and downs, success and failure, rich and poor. And you start to learn how to just go with it all, go with the flow. And then when you look back, you see that there was a logic to all of it. Like it was all working in your favor somehow. Even the tragedies, even the failures. And I think ultimately you go back to authenticity and confidence. And I said the word faith. It really is about faith. That's what I've learned at this point in my life. Your faith will make it so. And the faith in something, like a faith in yourself or a project that you're engaged with, like, there's a vibration, there's an energy in that that I think makes things manifest. And it's also very attractive, somebody who has faith. And so you end up attracting people to you. Because I think when you're in that state, everybody wants that. Who doesn't want to have absolute faith? Right? Like, which is trust. Right. Which is the absence of fear. And to use a sports analogy, I used to be a hockey player, and I was okay. But the worst thing was coming up against a guy who had absolute faith in their ability or that they were going to win. You just realize, I can't knock this guy off his game. There's nothing I'm going to do.

[A]

Kind of regardless of their ability, the faith was kind of more important.

[B]

Exactly. And that, I realized, was the strongest quality in a player. You don't want to come up against a guy who has absolute faith.

[A]

There's a Bill Burr quote that says, you're going to be fine. And even if you're not going to be fine, isn't it better to just exist, thinking you're going to be fine until it's not fine? And then when it's not fine, you can just deal with it then? But it makes no sense to ruin right now.

[B]

Yeah. Bill Burr is a, is a very, a wise man. That's how I am with the belief in God. I mean, belief in God makes me feel more powerful. So why not believe in God? It's really that simple for me. I mean, there's, there's other things for me. I've had experience.

[A]

It's like the productivity, bro. Pascal's wager, right?

[B]

Exactly, exactly, exactly. God is on my side.

[A]

Just sort of thinking about the opposite side. You used the word fear there. It's something I've been kind of obsessed with this year. Why, why is it that fear is so sort of prevalent in that way? Why do we see threats where there are none? Why is it that we're so concerned with that? And what's a way to get us to sort of move out of that fear based perspective?

[B]

Well, that's a big question. I mean, it goes back probably to childhood. I mean, we all have fear. We come into the world, we're vulnerable, totally helpless, totally dependent. That's a scary thing. And if we don't get the attunement we need the love we need, the comfort we need, the needs that we need, there's going to be fear there. And so I think it's built in, in some way like this, this feeling of like I'm not entirely safe and you can have the best parents in the world, but I don't think there's anybody walking around who doesn't have some kind of issues or fear around unconscious fear around their own safety that they then project on to the world. And then of course, we live in a culture, particularly with the media, that weaponizes fear to keep you watching, to keep you under control. And so I'm reading the Screwtape letters right now, and it's all about the devil, essentially. And it's all about fear. If you can keep a person in fear, you can control them. So fear is really the biggest battle that we're all facing and we don't want to feel it. That's really what it is. If you're not afraid to feel, what are you actually afraid of? Right. And so we do so much to avoid feeling our fear. And so one of the practices that I've done and I encourage other people to do is to constantly put yourself in situations where you're confronting your fear and then go through it and feel the panic, feel everything that comes up. And then on the other side of that, you realize very quickly it was all an illusion, it was all in your head, it wasn't real in the way that you thought it was. So how do you confront it? You have to take risks. You have to be willing to move towards your fear. There's really no other way to do it. And to understand that there's a very strong force within you which I call the lower self, you might call it the shadow that is afraid and is doing everything that it can to what it thinks is protecting you. So it's going to convince you. It's going to tell you stories, all kinds of stories about why you shouldn't do that or why that's scary or why that woman that you want to ask out is probably a bitch. So what's the point? Or it's never going to work out. This is the voice of fear. So you have to start to understand that your negative thoughts are actually just the voice of your fear and then understand that the culture is trying to keep you afraid. And so it takes a lot of work. I mean, I think you have to work every day in some way to mitigate against all of that fear.

[A]

Is that a top down solution? Is that a bottom up solution? Is it something else? Because I think there's a tendency for perhaps the sort of people that listen to shows like this one to think that they can think their way out of an overthinking problem or think their way out of a feeling problem. And I'm not sure whether that's possible.

[B]

No, you can't solve a problem of the mind with the mind. It has to be through action. You have to be willing to take action. You have to do something different. The mind is tricky. The mind is not a reliable narrator of your experience. That's one thing that I've come to understand. I don't necessarily trust my mind, particularly when I'm in a state of anxiety or fear or confusion. That's when it's the least reliable. It's most reliable when I'm feeling good, when I'm feeling aligned, when I'm feeling connected, let's say. And so I think, yeah, you have to be willing to do things right. Take risks, take action, move your body in some way. I mean, you probably know this because, you know, Huberman talked about a lot this, this when we're in a fear state, we're agitated or frustrated or whatever it is. If you go for a walk, it solves the problem instantly because what are you doing? You're walking forward in space. So that's telling your brain there's no fear there. So you can be lost in something that's Overtaking you, that's consuming you, negative thoughts, and you can go for a walk and literally five minutes later it's clear. So that tells you just a walk can solve most of your problems.

[A]

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[B]

So this, this is really, I'm going to say this a lot. This is the heart of my work. I said, my clients make fun of me. I'm like, this is the most important thing you have to understand. But we all had to portray ourselves as children in order to stay in connection and in favor with our caregivers. There were certain things that they wanted from us and so we gave gave them that. And there were certain things we intuited or were told directly that they didn't like about the way that we were. And so that betrayal process starts at a very young age. The primary survival strategy for any child is to stay in connection and favor with their caregivers so they have no choice but to betray themselves. So that self betrayal becomes a pattern, it becomes a way of being. And so we believe that we have to have to betray ourselves in some way in order to stay in connection with other people. So the unconscious belief when we do betray ourself or abandon ourself, or don't speak our truth or give ourselves away. Whatever phrase you want to use is, what we're actually afraid of is the disconnection from the other person, which on a primal level is a threat of course, because we want to stay connected to the, to the tribe. We need to stay connected to other people to survive. And so the illusion that we have to shatter is that you can actually stand on your own, that you can tolerate the feelings of disconnection. You can tolerate saying something or doing something and feeling the disapproval from, from your friend or from the world or from your spouse and that you're going to be okay. Like you're, it's not going to kill you the way the unconscious mind thinks. It's thinks it would as when you were a child. And so that's not an easy thing to do. First you have to understand that you are betraying yourself. And because it's so habitual, very often we don't, we're just left with a feeling of we're angry, resentful, we don't feel empowered in our life. Some, you know, the world out there is somehow controlling us and we're at effect to our environment. Those are all signs that we are betraying ourselves. And so once you start to understand that, then you can take some self responsibility. And the question I ask in all these situations with betrayal, let's say, oh, I have a client show up. It's like I was betrayed, my girlfriend, my boy, whatever said this, did this. And the question I always ask is, was there a moment before the betrayal where you betrayed yourself? Like was there some intuition, some instinct, something you wanted to say but you didn't say? And every time there's always a yes. And it's like, well, why do you say it? Because I was afraid. Afraid of what? Well, afraid of how they're going to react. And so we all have that right. And so it's just, it's just a practice. It's an awareness first and then a practice because it's the only way we really can be free. Right. If otherwise we're, we're modulating our behavior based on the external world, based on, you know, how other people are going to react? We're, you know, we're caring what other people think, but it's really deeper than that.

[A]

Is that why the fact that the self betrayal begins in childhood in relationship with your caregiver? Typically, is that why relationships are such a breeding ground for this to come up?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

It's now mirroring the first time that this happened.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, you're gonna heal all your childhood wounds in your relationship. I'm finding that out. And it's tricky. It always comes up. I'm projecting my issues with my mother, all the issues from my childhood, onto my partner all the time. And she was doing the same to me. And it's, you know, it creates this confusion, it creates this resentment. We get at each other and fortunately, you know, she's a pretty aware, evolved person. So we're able to get to the heart of what's actually going on for both of us and then come back into unity. But it's really about self responsibility. It's like, how am I co creating this? There's something that I'm doing. There's some distortion I have, like I believe this thing. Is it actually true? Like I didn't, I grew up, my mom left my father, left my stepfather and then, and didn't really attend to my needs during that process. I mean, she was overwhelmed, she was very young. And I felt like, hey, you know, does anybody want to check in with me, see how I feel about this? So my conception of women was I don't trust them and they don't care what I feel. And so I walk into a relationship and that's, I'm looking for evidence of that everywhere. And I'm building a case against her. And any little thing that she does that confirms my belief, I point to it and then I stack it up until I blow up. And I'm like, you're doing this, you're doing this, you're doing this. And maybe she is doing some of those things, but my reaction to it is completely out of proportion. Because of my history and because of that, I'm not actually seeing the good things that she's doing. I'm not seeing the ways in which she is in fact very trustable. And so we all come into relationship with those kind of distortions.

[A]

Just going back to that authenticity point, sort of folding that into relationships. How much room do you think there is for self editing in a relationship?

[B]

I think discernment is the key. I don't think you have to share everything in a relationship. That's, that's, that's my feeling. But you have to be careful that you're not hiding because if you're hiding something, it's going to be felt right. And if you're hiding it out of shame, that's going to be felt. And ultimately it's, it's going to, it's going to come up. So I think, you know, and we can. We can dilute ourselves. We can rationalize. I don't need to share everything with my partner. I don't need to share this. It's not really important. Um, but oftentimes it's that that kind of vulnerability is terrifying, right? To really reveal who we actually are to our partners. And I think for men particularly, it's like to reveal that sometimes you're just afraid, you know, that. That you have fear about whatever, you know. And there's something maybe shameful about that. And the reframe for me is that if you can take ownership of your fear and sort of be with it, you know, and not put it on her. Not. It's not. You're not asking that she take care of it or do something about it, but it. What it does is it brings you into presence, right? Because she can feel that something's going on. And so if you can name it for yourself and contain it within yourself, it actually creates safety. Right? That kind of vulnerability is really important. The difference is if you're afraid and you're looking for her to be your mother and take care of you, or she has the instinct to want to take care of you because you're afraid, which, as a man, you want to resist that because you don't want her to be your mother. But I think that kind of vulnerability is really important. I don't think you have to share all your troubles with them, all the details of the thing. But if I'm having a bad day, I want to make sure that my wife knows that it's not about her. So I want to give her some kind of indication, like what's going on for me. Be present with her, because that's what she's longing for. She's longing for me to be present. And if I don't reveal myself in those moments, I'm not present. And if I'm not present, she's going to be agitated. She's going to create a story in her head that she's done something wrong or she's going to be upset or angry and something's going to happen. So that's 10. It's not exactly an answer to your question, but that's. That's how I think about all that stuff.

[A]

I guess we've got this sort of strange balance between betraying yourself to maintain a connection with someone or to not have to open yourself up or whatever. But then if you do do that, this person isn't in connection with you. They're in connection with this projection that you've just put forward. But then there's also the sense of, well, you need to be discerning. Like, you don't need to tell them about your new athlete's foot protocol, you know, whatever it is that you've got that's going on. I had chronic flatulence in the office today, honey. Like, some things perhaps are best kept for the boys. But as soon as you open that door, the discernment, it is a. It becomes a decision, right. You need to make this sort of editorial choice about what is it that I'm going to do. And that can become a very slippery slope. A lot of guys can use that to excuse ever having to open up. And then you end up hiding things that you probably shouldn't really be hiding. And then you start having expectations that are unspoken resentments because you wanted this thing, but you never said it. And yeah, that balance between betraying yourself and then ending up with somebody connecting to a person that you're not is a very dangerous slippery slope, I think, for a lot of guys.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. You see that a lot in the. The kind of red pill community, like, never share your feelings with your woman. And I mean, I understand they're reacting to. To the opposite pole of that, which is there's this movement to sharing everything with your wife. Like, she's your best friend and you want to open up, you want to be vulnerable, and it's important that she sees you feel, and that creates connection and intimacy. And I'm a therapy guy, so I can relate to that to a degree. And I did that first when I started therapy and especially into my training. And that's all you're doing, is revealing yourself over and over and over again. And then I would do that in my relationships. And it took me some time to realize, like, no, that's too much. Like, I don't need to be sharing all of that with her. So I have to be discerning. I have to be able to contain things within myself. I think that's a real practice. Learning, containment, which is not suppression or repression. There's a difference, obviously. Um, there's certain things, yeah, I have. I need to take to the boys and there's risks I have to take with my wife that are going to be vulnerable. Right. There's things that maybe I need, that I need to express to her or the example I just gave that, you know, that there's places where I feel afraid right now. The whole game for me, as I said, is presence like if you are not present with her, then she's not going to be happy, she's not going to feel safe. And so you have to find a way to be discerning, but share enough so that you're present so that she can feel you. She has to be able to feel you. If she can't feel you, she doesn't trust you because you're actually not trustable. If you're not in, in touch in some way with what you're actually feeling, you're not trustable. And the reason why is if you suppress your emotions or you rationalize them in some way, you're going to act in compensation to those feelings in a way that's not authentic to you. Right. And that's going to create problems for you. So it's really, really important that you understand, know without shame what it is that you're feeling. And you know, how and when you choose to share that with her is ultimately, you know, is, is up to you.

[A]

Why is self compassion so hard? We want to have our own back if nothing else. If we're going to do containment, we need to be both a, like a firm, supportive school teacher and also a pretty sort of ruthless prison guard at the same time, I suppose. But we need that self compassion. Why is that? Often quite difficult to access.

[B]

Because it comes into conflict with a lower self aspect of us that believes that we are bad. And what do I mean by that? Well, going back to what I was saying earlier about we, we have to repress or deny or disassociate from certain aspects of ourself in order to stay connected and in favor with our caregivers. Well, the child has no discernment, no consciousness. Right. It's the parents are God. And so they're going to make the assumption, they're going to draw the conclusion that those parts of them are bad. Like that part of me is bad. And so most of us, I would say all of us, but I'll say most of us have some place inside us that doesn't trust our own inherent goodness. Right. That there's some part of us that's bad. And it's usually, you know, deep in the unconscious and it can be masked by a kind of confidence or bravado. But most people have to some degree of shame. And so that part of us that thinks it's bad, it wants to continue to tell ourselves the story that we are bad. Why? Because that's what creates safety for us. And meaning that this part of me, right, let's say For a guy, it's my aggression, okay? A lot of guys think their aggression is bad. They've been told their aggression is bad. So if I show my aggression, I'm going to get in trouble. Like mom's not going to be happy or the world is not going to be happy, or my girlfriend's not going to be happy. So we make that part of us bad. So whenever it comes up, we're going to tell ourselves a story that there's something wrong with us. I'm out of control. I need to work on this. Some. Something that it's not okay. And so it takes a lot of work to sort of override that, to accept. And maybe this is why on a deeper level, it's hard to accept the depth of our shadow. It's hard to accept how cruel we can be. It's hard to accept that all of the insanity that we see out in the world that's horrifying to, to us also exists in us. And maybe we don't act it out in overt ways, but sometimes we act it out in, in, in subtle ways. All of us are capable of cruelty. And you know, given a certain set of circumstances, like, would I have been a Nazi? Maybe. Probably. I mean, I don't know. So that lives in me. And I think it's very hard for people to come to terms with that and accept themselves there. Generally what we do is we suppress it because we want to create an idealized self image that we're good. We don't want to know that part of ourself. And so it's in the place where it's hard to be compassionate for ourself. It's really hard to be compassionate from that place where there's this deep rooted belief that there's something about us that's not okay.

[A]

Yeah. Something wrong or broken. It is odd that. I don't know, I can't think of a much less functional belief than that it's not really going to contribute to having a flourishing life or thriving. And yet it's so endemic to most people, especially people that are high performers.

[B]

Yeah, well, there, there's, and I understand it, you know, there's. There's a belief that if I'm hard on myself, like I'm going to achieve more. Right. Having that, that militant general in your head. And I, and I think that's useful. I mean, I want a tough coach. I loved tough coaches. I love coaches that pushed me and who were clear. And if I wasn't meeting the standard, they'd Let me know. I like that. And if they were disappointed in me, they also let me know.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Whoop. I've worn Whoop for over five years now, since way before they were a partner on the show. And it's the only wearable I've ever stuck with because it is the best. I've actually tracked over 1600 days of my life with it, according to the app, which is pretty crazy. Whoop is super innocuous. You don't even remember that you've got it on. And yet it tracks everything 247 via a little device on your wrist. It tracks your heart rate, your sleep, your recovery, all of your workouts, your resting heart rate, heart rate variability, how much you're breathing throughout the night and now can even track your steps. Puts all of this into an app and spits out very simple to understand and fantastically usable data. It's phenomenal. I'm a massive, massive fan of them. And best of all, you can join for free. Pay nothing for the brand new Whoop 4.0 strap. Plus you get your first month for free. And there's a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can buy it for free, try it for free. If you don't like it after 29 days, they'll just give you your money back. You can get the brand new Whoop 4.0 and that 30 day free trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join.whoop.commodernwisdom that's join.whoop.commodernWisdom but at the same time, if.

[B]

That coach doesn't have the capacity to love me, to be there for me, to see me as human, right, and to transcend the performance or the goal and go underneath that, I don't really trust him and ultimately it's going to unravel. And you see these coaches, those hard apps coaches, they don't last long. They move from team to team. You know, it's like a little bit of medicine that maybe that team needs for a couple of years, but then they move on, right? So I think we need, we need both, both things we need, we need, we need to push ourselves, but we also need compassion for ourselves. And again, you know, it's easy to rationalize. Like again, the mind is very, very tricky and so it's like, I could take the day off today, things like that. And so we want to mitigate against that. So it's a really, really tricky balance. And, you know, I struggle with it all the time. Right. Like where is the balance between pushing myself and self compassion?

[A]

Yeah. It's strange that by continuing to whip yourself into submission and push yourself harder, you become successful in the only way that other people can judge you, which is outwardly. But nobody really sees the personal price that you've had to pay to get to the position that you're in. And that means that a lot of the time the trade off, it's a. One of the metrics is observable and another one of the metrics is hidden. And you will almost always trade a hidden metric for an observable metric because people will happily spend an extra hour and a half daily commute going to and from a job that's one rung up the ladder higher and another 15 grand a year in terms of annual revenue. But what have they lost in terms of sanity and sleep and time with their kids or the relationship quality? Well, those are all hidden metrics. The observable metric is what's your job title? How much do you earn? Pierre, where did you go on holiday last year? And yeah, there's this cool insight I learned from an evolutionary psychologist about how ancestral leaders are two ways. Primarily that leaders ascended within tribes. So one was through dominance and the other was through prestige. So dominance being more tyrannical, more top down, more authoritarian, and prestige being more egalitarian, sort of voted by the group. One that's come maybe from the bottom up. Now what's interesting is that you need different kinds of leaders at different periods. So it seems like the more domineering leader that's top down, you want that person in times of war and conflict because they're decisive, they're ruthless, they'll garner everybody together. Everybody needs to get on the same fucking page or else we're all going to die. Okay, like stop dicking about, Johnny. But then the other side, the problem that you have with that, and I think that I, I'm certain that there's a parallel when it comes to sort of the way that we treat ourselves. The problem with having a tyrant is that when the war's over, you've still got a fucking tyrant. And the prestigious leader, the one that's risen from the bottom up, he's raising everyone else along, he's able to play the game, he knows what's going, he's not going to get a look in because this fucking tyrannical, top down, authoritarian bastard has now surrounded himself with sycophants. He's fortified himself. And I really think there's something to this about how we sort of treat ourselves. And I think that the most obvious place is when you begin doing anything and you're on the launch pad of self growth or understanding, discovering who you really are, getting a business off the ground, leaving the city or the country that you don't want to be in anymore, leaving that relationship, getting out of the family that you don't want to be in, whatever it is like you need to use whatever fuel you can get a hold of. And it's kind of like you're in war. Like if you're going to make something happen from zero, you're at total, the RPMs are at zero, the miles per hour at zero. There is nothing, there's no inertia or momentum to carry you off. And you need to rip this motherfucker off the launch pad one inch at a time. You could probably do with someone that's good at going to war. The problem is after you get out into orbit and you're just floating around, you go. I know that that was a really useful mindset. I know that that tyrannical leader was one that I needed to domineer over me, but I really wish he would fuck off now. But unfortunately he's still there.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's, that's exactly right. Different energies, different qualities at different times in our life. But I, I agree with you. If I was going from zero, trying to get into shape, I'd want a hard ass motherfucker driving me all the time.

[A]

I don't know, screaming to my face.

[B]

Exactly. That's going to get me there as quick as possible. I'm going to learn something about myself. But then once I arrive and I'm satisfied with where I'm at, maybe, maybe that energy wants to shift. So it might be also like, I mean, while you were talking, I was thinking about the balance of the masculine and the feminine. It's not exactly what you're saying, but you know, there's something about that too. And both are necessary at different times. You know, you need that strong masculine force and sometimes you need that comforting feminine force.

[A]

You said earlier on, the reason I asked about the mature man versus the young man strategy is I'm 36 now, so I guess I'm kind of straddling both of them. And I get the sense that when you're starting out with something, you really need to be a bit more prescriptive. And you probably do need more of a drill sergeant than an Eckhart Tolle. But as you start to accumulate a little bit of instinct and experience, that is precisely the thing that's hard to replicate. So not only are you allowing yourself to sort of aggregate all of your life experiences, you're finding more ease, you're finding more play, you're, you're competitive in a manner that other people simply can't do. Because unless they've had all of the experiences that you've had in precisely the same sequence with the reflections that you've got for the amount of duration of time that you've done it for, they can't be you. There is no blueprint that can work that back. Because frankly, kind of like YouTube's algorithm, open the black box, they don't even know how it works. You don't even know how your own instinct works. Right? Yeah, and I'm, I'm just fascinated at the moment. You know, I spent a lot of time when I first started this show seven years ago, very much productivity, bro. The five daily step routine that I need to do to ensure that I get my sort of three month sprints and my one year goals and my five year vision and all the rest of this stuff, it was very prescriptive, it was very rigid, it was very compartmentalized and it was very useful and fuck, it worked. But I'm really interested now in what a more sort of fluid, easeful version of that looks like. One that does allow me to use instinct and aggregate all of this experience a lot more. And I kind of get the sense that that is moving from the tyrant across into the sort of benevolent leader. Yeah, that's kind of how I've got it in my head.

[B]

Yeah, no, that's, that's beautiful. Well, you're 36 years old, you're at the height of your powers. You're, you know, you're, it's not your time to be self reflective. It's, you know, you're attacking, you know, and that's what you should be doing. You're just following your energy, you're following what you want to do, right. Later in life you can look back and maybe make sense of it all. So. And I was that, right? And right around your age I started to think, yeah, there's something else, right? Because I, you know, I went to Hollywood and you know, I was hungry for it and I went after it and it was thrilling and it was exciting and you know, I was making money and meeting all these people and having success. And then there got a point where I just like, there's, there's more. And I didn't know exactly what that meant. But that's when I started on this. This journey that I've. That I've gone on. But I can tell you now, at 55, my approach to life is completely different. And it goes back to what I was saying earlier. It's. Instead of, like, make it happen, I. I think let it happen. It's going to come to me. I want to be in the flow. I don't want to force anything. And that was very hard for my ego to come to terms with.

[A]

You know, you're not in the driving seat anymore.

[B]

Yeah, my ego was screaming like, what the fuck, man? Impose your will on the world, bro.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's a very powerful feeling. And I did that. And it feels great when you impose your will in the world and you get what you want, but that is. That is a diminishing supply. And it. At a certain point, you want to just experiment with doing something differently. Like, what's another way to meet life? Like, there's. There's more information out there. And, you know, I'm like, I'm in my wise man years, apparently, which is sort of weird because, you know, I. I have some wisdom. I've accrued it along the way. But there's another part of me that's still trying to figure it all out and make mistakes. But there is. There is something about what I just said, like, having faith, letting it happen, that life is going to unfold, that you're not really in control of things. And the more conscious and present that you can be, the more you're going to see the entirety of everything. And of course, as you get older, into your paternal years, you've climbed the mountain. You know what that feels like. You have that satisfaction. You're in a different place in your life where you want to hold things, you know what I mean? Help other people and share what you've learned. And it's deeply gratifying. I mean, I'm just coming to this because that, you know, I was pretty aggressive and ambitious in my youth, and I still am, but I approach it now as an older man in a completely different way.

[A]

It's so interesting saying, getting what you want from the world, imposing your will on the world again, it's that sort of domineering energy. But one of the things that it assumes a lot of things, the thing that's so funny that it assumes is that you know what's best for you to want. How fucking, like, narcissistic are you to think that you know what's best for you?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And that's something I'm very much sort of leaning into now. Again, a lot of parallels. Being able to make things happen, agency, having a vision, bringing it into the world, breaking through it, smashing through whatever barrier it was that you thought even, you know, small, mundane, boring successes, thought patterns that you never thought that you could get past, or belief structures that you thought that you were going to have, or ways of seeing the world or. Or ossified social networks that you were just adamant would. Would kind of always be there. And breaking through those is very, very impressive. But, yeah, I. I get the sense that I am not necessarily always the best advisor for what I need in the world and that maybe just having some faith and getting out of my own fucking way. And again, this is the only thing that you can do. I appreciate that this might sound like a sort of opulent position to be in, but after a while, after you've accumulated enough momentum and inertia with good habits and good routines, and you kind of have a sense of, you know, everything's moved from system two thinking, where it's very deliberate, into system one thinking, where it's a little bit more sort of automated. You have to assume that most of the things that are going well in your life aren't coming because of what you're doing consciously. You did all of the conscious stuff before, so it's like, right, okay, why are you gripping so tightly to it now? Why are you sort of holding? And why are you that adamant that you actually have that much control over the outcomes that are coming? In any case, how much of it is intention and fear and rumination and concern and anxiety and worry, and how much of it is just that you've accumulated some competence and over a long enough time horizon, people tend to get what they deserve because they roll the dice enough times?

[B]

Well, I can only speak for myself, but I think a lot of us go through this time when we realize that what was motivating me was not what I thought.

[A]

Yep, yep.

[B]

I thought I wanted it for this reason, but in fact, it was something else. And for me, I realized at about 37 that almost everything that I was doing was to win the love of my father. And I didn't. I didn't. I, you know, I. I learned that in a. A process like a, you know, I do this, you know, somatic therapy called core energetics. And, you know, you. You get deep, deep into your feelings, and this was not something that I was aware of at all. But in the, in this process, all of a sudden, this awareness came and these thoughts came that, you know, I played hockey and it was like I, I said these words like, I play hard for him. And then I thought, what else am I doing in my life to win his love? Because my dad wasn't around and I thought, well, if I'm doing it for that reason, I'm not actually free and what is it that I want to do? And that was a real crisis point in my life. I don't think we can avoid it. I think we all want to win the love of our father, we want to please the father. I think that's built in, so I don't necessarily think it's wrong. But once you've achieved, you know, I did what I had to do. My dad was proud of me, I'd achieved that. But then the rest of my life, what am I going to do with the rest of my life? Well, I want to do what I want to do. But what is that? Because I've been driven by this thing for so long, it's overtaken me. I've created stories around it for the reasons why. But what is it? Now? That's a very uncomfortable place to be because you're letting go of everything that you thought you know, everything. You're attached to your entire identity and you have to go on this hero's journey, you know, let go of the known world, enter into the. The unknown. And it's fucking scary.

[A]

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[B]

That'S why, you know, going back to what you were saying, you know, I had this thought. This is, you know, this is why people need therapy. I think it's not even necessarily to solve a problem that you have, but just to reflect you back to you in the places where you may have distortions or blind spots. Because when somebody is talking to you and they're kind of full of shit, you can feel it, right? You can feel that they're off just a little bit. And a good therapist is going to be able to sort of name that for you and then lead you back to yourself. Like, I don't give advice to my clients. I just try to reflect what I see back to them and lead them back to their own internal compass, their own internal wisdom. That's the best I can do.

[A]

I heard the other day, eventually you just get sick of yourself.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, it's so good.

[A]

A lot of. A lot. It sort of refers to a lot of things. I think first off, that sort of selfish energy that you were talking about before the. That you can't really be in service. You can't really have that sort of paternal pay it forward thing because it's still all about you. Even the kids are about you. Even little Timmy's performance isn't about Timmy. It's about how does this reflect on you. It's not about. It's not about being narcissism. Yeah, yeah, it is. And you know, in many ways that is a fucking powerful energy again. And it will make you incredibly successful in the only way that we can all be judged, which is outwardly. But I think, you know, whether it's will be and transcendent include or, you know, alchemizing it into something else, eventually, I mean, fuck it, you know, you can get through your entire life and sort of get to that stage. Perhaps we have a new president who has managed to do such, but it'll carry you a very long way. But I'm not convinced that that's the energy that you want to be using for the entire time. I don't. I think it's a toxic fuel when used long term. And I think that there's sort of more holistic and interesting ways to get there. Especially after you've burned the first couple of rocket boosters filled with that, like, me, energy. And then, okay, well, what's next?

[B]

I had my most satisfying experiences when I played hockey. When I didn't concern myself with my stats or scoring goals, whatever it was. When I concerned myself with, how can I be useful for this team? Like, when I made that switch, like, because sometimes I was playing with a lot of really good guys and I wasn't as good as them, and I was like, I have to figure out a way to be useful. And I always found those experiences to be the most satisfying because I was part of something. And sometimes you're appreciated, sometimes you're not, but you have this own internal appreciation. So I think you're right. I think real maturity is understanding that, particularly as a man, that spiritual fulfillment, psychological fulfillment, comes from being of service, that you have to, you know, give your life to something bigger than yourself and serve that thing. And I think, you know, unfortunately, the culture is, you know, we're very much lost in being famous and being successful and all the outward things you were talking about. But that's. That's the switch that I'm trying to make. Again, my ego gets involved. It's like, what about you, bro? What about what you want? But you also are less neurotic that way. When you're not thinking about yourself, you have less anxiety because you're just focused on giving now, not in a way that you're betraying yourself. As we talked about earlier, you have to be discerning. You have to take care of yourself. But if you're oriented in that way, I think it's ultimately a lot more satisfying.

[A]

Do you think that there'll ever be a way to communicate to people that becoming rich and successful is not going to fix your problems?

[B]

No, I think you gotta. You gotta find out on your own. I did. You are, dude, it's.

[A]

It's wild. Like, you know, I've been. I've been fortunate enough to be around some of the highest status, richest people on the planet over the last few years since moving to America. All of them have got problems. All of them are fucked up. I was thinking, right, okay, well, if that's. If that's the trajectory that everybody wants to be on, and you know for a fact that the people that are there have still got maybe, maybe even more of the problems. You know, they've got layers of expectation and resentment and uncertainty and pressure and scrutiny and all of this stuff piled on top of Them and all of the shit that they had when they were still poor.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And there's just no, I am yet, I'm yet to find an effective way to communicate that external validation will not fill an internal void.

[B]

Yeah, that's how most of us are oriented. That's what we see, you know, because they look so happy. You know, we get this curated version of celebrities or influencers. But I, you know, I know the truth because I was there in Hollywood. I saw what's going on. I was like, these fucking people are crazy. I couldn't believe it. It was shocking to me how incredibly neurotic and they were and wonderful people and brilliant and all of that, you know, as you're experiencing, but, you know, it doesn't take away your problems. It's the one thing I appreciate about Ben Affleck. I mean, he talks about this wide out in the open. He's just like, I hate being fucking famous. I can't do anything. I have to live in this fucking box. And none of my problems went away. Like, I still am. Have to live with all my problems. And maybe in some way it actually makes it harder because I certainly gives.

[A]

You, it certainly gives you less sympathy, Right? Like, at the very least, the people, the people at the bottom that are miserable will get sympathy from everybody. But the people at the top that are miserable just feel like, how bourgeois, how luxurious of a position to be in to have all of this. Do you not know how many people would kill to have that? Do you know, if I was you, I wouldn't, I would be, it would all of my problems. And you go, I think if they could get rid of their problems, they would too.

[B]

Yeah, well, yeah, nobody gives a shit about the problems of the rich and successful. And that's a burden that, you know, you have to bear. I feel fortunate that I got a level of fame that wasn't crippling. You know, I had one TV show and, you know, people knew me from it, but it was, it was a very popular show, but it was small audience. So, you know, I, I, I can walk down the street and all of that. I mean, I'm still going to get recognized on the regular, but it allowed me to continue to engage in life and it allowed me to make a career transition, you know, because I went back and talked to a lot of my friends who are very famous and, you know, and I told them what it was that I was doing. They're like, you got out? And I was so surprised, but what do you mean I got out? They're like, man, good for you.

[A]

You got out the treatment like Alcatraz.

[B]

Well, it is a kind of prison once you're famous because you can't really go anywhere and you can't make a transition. Like you're stuck there. You can't go get a regular job because of the amount of transference that's placed on you. And so I was really surprised by their reaction. It was the first time that I realized that they did in fact feel trapped. And I felt fortunate that I still had the kind of freedom to be able to walk away.

[A]

Yeah, it's fascinating. I remember. So I did a TV show. I did a few TV shows in my twenties. One of them was Love island, the first season in the uk, popular sort of reality TV dating thing. And I always remember thinking at the time, like a little bit wistful. I was, I half had the perspective that I knew that this was the right thing. The first season was 10 times smaller than the second, which was 10 times smaller than the third, which was 10 times smaller than THE FOURTH. And then it kind of peaked and has now maybe flattened out. But I always, I always thought, I wonder what it would have been like to have done one of the, you know, better known seasons who've come in at season two or season three or season four. I could have pretty much picked any of them. The casting directors were friendly and in retrospect, I'm so fucking glad that it was the smallest one. It was basically a full cost broadcast dress rehearsal for the rest of the series, not even the seasons. And I'm so glad because it meant, like you say, I was like beholden to nothing. I came off, nothing had changed, no one cared. They maybe accumulated a thousand followers on Instagram. So basically nothing had, nothing had altered. So it meant that I was unencumbered by.

[B]

But you're pretty, you're pretty famous now. I mean, you must get recognized everywhere. And I mean, I remember when I saw you at Kuya, like. Cause I'd seen you, you know, on YouTube and you know, there's a, I have a projection onto you. Like I. There's something that happens in relationship when you meet somebody who you've seen on the screen and so that, that, that must be happening for you all the time.

[A]

It is. But the difference is it feels like people know me, you know, on a reality TV show where 24 hours is curated into 45 minutes nightly for seven weeks or something and you're 27, 26, 27, and you're still an adult. Infant. I mean, I largely still am, but at least it feels like when people come up to me, they know me, you know, they come up and they ask stuff about my life. They understand what I genuinely care about.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And I've not, you know, with. At least with the show. This isn't that normie of a show. If you're going to sit and listen to two blokes prattle on for an hour about like the inner, inner sort of machinations of, of. Of emotions and do we really need to be. What's the difference between discernment and containment? Like, you know, it selects for a very particular type of person. And I'm very glad that the kinds of people that I would want to go for a coffee with and what it basically has done, if I'm being honest, is it has outsourced friend finding for me on a sort of global scale. And the only people that come up are the ones that have been through the fire and brimstone of putting up with us talking about this like, kind of niche weird psychology bullshit. I'm sure, you know, as it continues to go, there'll be challenges. And I was having this conversation only a couple of days ago, like, how do you know when enough exposure is enough? And how do you then stop it from being too much? And it's not really a train that you can sort of stop slowing down the rocket ship. You can't just like pull some ejector button and be like, right, okay, we'll stop it there. Like, this is the perfect amount. So I don't know. And also, again, what an opulent problem to have. It's like a rich guy complaining about how hard it is to file his taxes. But it'll be an interesting challenge. At the moment, it's the perfect level. People say hello once every 15 minutes when I'm on the street, or a bit more often if I'm in a gym and sometimes I get free coffee. You know, like, people have always got nice things to say. It's brilliant. But again that the roller coaster continues to roll. So we'll see what ends up in a few years time.

[B]

Yeah, well, I guess the. Any kind of an anonymous life is, is essentially over for you.

[A]

Yeah, that's not something that I'd considered before. Yeah, but you're right. I mean, you want everybody to know your face. You want everybody to know your name and no one to know your face. And I've managed to do probably close to the opposite. Like, you look like that guy, that guy that does that thing I'm like, right, okay. Yeah. You know the face and have no idea of the name, so.

[B]

Well, it's the burden. It's the burden that comes with the gift. It's the shadow. There's always a shadow. There's always a price that we have to pay when we bring our gift fully to the world. There's no way around it.

[A]

What was the moment for you when you kind of got to the I'm not sure that this is all it thing when you were in Hollywood?

[B]

I. I don't. You know, it's. I. I had. I had this great year where I had this television show. I had two movies. I was dating this very beautiful movie star. I had just bought this house. I was redoing it. I mean, I had everything, and it was upside. Everywhere that I looked. And I just had this, like, deep feeling of dissatisfaction. I wasn't really happy. I mean, I was. I was gratified in a way, and proud. But the. I wasn't satisfied. And I didn't know what that was. I didn't have the consciousness at the time to realize this wasn't where I was supposed to be. Although, you know, that had moments where it's. You know, I was on the set of Friends, I remember, and doing a guest spot, and, you know, sitting on the. On the couch in the coffee shop, and there are all the friends. And it's kind of a surreal moment. It was early in my career, and at the time, they're making $750,000 an episode, and I'm just, you know, looking at them taking all of that in. And I had this feeling. It's like, I don't want this. And I didn't know what that was. I mean, it was a very clear thought. And I was like, is that real, or is that just some fear of success that I'm having? And it didn't really play out for another six or seven years. And then it wasn't until I found something that really lit me up. And I realized that the thing that I was searching for in acting, I found in this somatic psychotherapy. Like, everything that I wanted was in that. And the game that that was. And the. The container that it existed in was so exciting for me and creative. And at that point then it was like. It was really simple. I just started to move in the direction of what I was most interested in.

[A]

Isn't it crazy when people have a. An inkling, the sort of earliest murmurings of a realization, and you say, and about six or seven years later, I actually was able to commit to that thing. Yeah, man, it's. I. Part of me thinks, oh, wouldn't it be great if we sort of had the courage of our convictions and we were able to pull the pin and things would happen more quickly. But then another part of me just thinks, you can't realize things before you're ready to realize them in that way.

[B]

No, I had to go through it. I had to go through the process of letting go. I mean, my ego was incredibly attached. I mean, I came up, you know, you're an actor, you're trying to make it. You don't think you're going to make it. Or, you know, maybe you have an intuition, but you don't know. And then you make it, and you're working on television, you're getting lots of money, and people are recognizing you. I mean, you're just in this other world that so many people dream about and your ego is just so elated. So then to have a thought like, I don't really want this. It's like, what? No, hey, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is like a dream come true. So it took, yeah, it took a long time for me to detach my ego, detach my identity, and all the, all the, you know, the validation that I was getting constantly, it just, you know, it, it fuels you. And I saw it. I saw it with other people like that. I, I, I saw that they were, as we talked about earlier, they were trapped. There was no way out for them. The amount of money that they were making, the fame they had. This was whether they liked it or not, that was their life.

[A]

Well, I think a good question to ask, and one that I think everybody can kind of, no matter what stage of success they're at, can think to themselves, is, okay, how much would be enough? What would it be? Would it be one gold medal? Well, how many gold medalists get one and then they get gold medalist syndrome and they think that they need two? Or would it be one super bowl because there's guys that have got pretty much enough to fit on every finger on their hands. Would it be interesting psychological study, if you ask people what their ideal level of earning is, and actually we can do this, I guess the people that are listening can do this now. So if you think to yourself, what level of earning would you get to? Annual earning, where you would think, yeah, that's it. I mean, that's really it for me. That number is almost definitely around about three times your annual income, regardless of what your annual income is. And it scales all the way up. So if you're making 100 grand a year, it's almost always about 300 grand a year. If you're making a million a year, it's almost always about 3 million a year. If you're making 5 million a year, it's always, always about 15 million a year. Just keeps on going. It's around about three times what you earn at the moment, but it doesn't stop, it just keeps going. So ask yourself the question, what? Okay, so what would be enough? Because we're not designed to be happy. We're designed to try as hard as we can, right? And that's the game. The game is you will try harder. You are a donkey with a stick on your back with a carrot attached at the front. And every step that you take toward the carrot, the carrot is going to move one step further away.

[B]

Well, the satisfaction is in. In the quest, you know, it's the climbing of the mountain that's most exciting. You get to the top and how long do you spend at the top? A couple of minutes and before you start climbing down and thinking about the next mountain you want to climb. So I think it's hard to orient that way because we're so goal oriented. But if you can stay present in the moment and realize it's like, I mean, that's how it is for me when I look back at Hollywood, the fond memories. Yes, I have fond memories about shooting scenes and meeting certain actors and really nailing something and then seeing it on the screen and feeling proud. But actually it was the early years in LA when I was driving around to auditions, three auditions a day. And you know, all the kind of craziness of all of that, like that part of the movie is my favorite looking back on it. So it was the journey. The moment before I made it was the most exciting.

[A]

The thing that's wild is I want to get on to talking about presence. But even in the nostalgia of thinking about that time, your nostalgic memories will almost always be more enjoyable than the actual time themselves. Morgan Housel tells this really brilliant. He's got an awesome, awesome article about nostalgia. Everyone can look at it. It's collaborative fund and it's. I think it's called nostalgia or memories. It came up a couple of weeks ago and he is talking to his wife now about the golden years, what he called the golden years. I think they got together when they were maybe 23 or something and they're living in Seattle or somewhere and they've just got their first apartment they're living together and they had no obligations, no kids. And he's reminiscing, he's talking to her about this now in the, you know, like, 40s. And he says, you remember that? That was the golden years. We didn't have to wake up. We could lie in whenever we wanted. We could eat whatever we wanted. We were able to do, you know, what a brilliant time that was. Apparently his wife turned to him and said, you were miserable. Do you not remember? You hated it. You were constantly terrified you were going to lose your job. We were living paycheck to paycheck. And he went a little bit deeper and realized, oh, yeah, that that was what was happening. I was. I was terrified. But my memory of that young kid was that all of the things he needed to be worried about or that he thought he should be worried about didn't come to pass. So I have the wisdom, I have the perspective that he never needed to worry. So all of the worries are forgotten and all of the highlights are retained, but the felt experience day to day of that particular individual was concern and rumination and anxiety and threat display. It was all of that stuff.

[B]

Well, he maybe felt alive, you know, and maybe that's what he's remembering. I don't know if you saw that Peter Jackson movie, forget the name of it, but he took all this World War I footage and remastered it. So he put it in color and smoothed it out. Really interesting. But the. The film starts with this. All these voiceovers from British soldiers. And they're obviously recording this when they were very old, in their 80s, probably. And, you know, we all know that World War I is considered the most brutal war in history. Every single soldier essentially said, oh, that was the time of my life. That was the great adventure venture. They loved it, you know, and you think, okay, maybe it's a lot of what you're saying, but, you know, they were alive and they were up against death. And yeah, in the moment, there's all this horror, but there is something about. I mean, I don't know how you feel, but there was a part of me when I was a younger man that felt sad that I never got to experience war.

[A]

Me too.

[B]

It's like I want to know what that feels like. And I'm never going to get to. To know that. And there's something that I think is lost and, you know, certainly play it out in our life lives in all kinds of different ways, but it's not the same. And my life is not at stake. I'm not Walking into a situation where I could be killed or I have to kill and have to feel what that is.

[A]

Yeah, there's some insane percentage. I saw this stat the other day about the percentage of silent generation that had been in military service, of boomers, of Gen X, of millennials, Gen Z. And it's just all the way down. It just gets precipitously lower. Another thing that I was thinking about, you know, when you're talking about the. The wartime mode, especially early on, I only realized this recently. One of my friends said this to me. I always sort of lament how busy things are and we've got all of this stuff to do and so on and so forth. We were walking into a gig, having just finished recording a ton of episodes in a ton of days. And I traveled to Australia and I come back and I was in the UK and just doing all this stuff, and I was. We were filming a vlog. I was like, dude, it's, you know, it's. It's going to be a tough week. It's going to be. It's going to be tough going. And he sort of fact checked me and he was like, what the fuck are you talking about, man? Like, you love this chaos. And it was the first time, you know how you're saying before a therapist is somebody that reflects you back to you. I remember thinking, yeah, I do, actually. I do fucking love this chaos. I do. I love spinning 10, 15 plates at once and seeing if I can keep them all going. But we have this story, we kind of. Especially around peace, at least for me. Peace being something that I try to. I'm a big fan of that. Any diversion from that is an aberration. It's something that should be fixed or it's wrong or it's broken. But there's certain things that are going to come along for the ride if you want to do things. Some nights you're not going to get perfect sleep, right? Some nights you're going to have to stay up late. Some nights, certain things are going to keep you awake. You're going to have to, you know, miss social engagements. You're going to have to make sacrifices in the gym, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't know, I feel like just accepting some of those things, not railing against them so much. Not saying that these are personal curses bestowed just on you. Unique problem that you have to deal with. Unfair, you know, a bug, not a feature. And you go, hey, what? What if? Kind of like gravity. You go, I wish that gravity was just A bit lighter. And he goes, well, guess what? Gravity is the exact weight that gravity is. It's the precise force that gravity is. So you're just going to have to put up with it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Well, there's no, you know, light without dark. There's no peace without war. So it's part of it. I personally love the chaos as well. I mean, it's. I, I like. Because it takes you out of control and you find out things about yourself when, when you go out of control. And it can be exciting, it can be scary. We can get addicted to it. I think that can be an issue. I've certainly suffered from that and I have to find the balance of it. But there's a lot of life in it and, and I, I think it's. I don't know. My feeling is. I think it's important to go a little insane sometimes. Right. We have to lose our mind. We have to lose ourselves. There's a lot of different ways that we could do that. It can be in our work or through some kind of, you know, spiritual practice or, you know, running a marathon, these kind of things. But I think it's. It's really important, particularly for men to put yourself in situations where you. You face overwhelm, you know, you're at. You're at your edge and to not judge it. As you said, to accept everything that's happening in the moment. I mean, that's really, that's what peace is. I think it's just the acceptance of what is and being okay with it.

[A]

You've mentioned the word presence a number of times. Sam Harris been on this show. A number of different meditation teachers. They have a conception of presence. What is it that you mean when you talk about being present?

[B]

Well, I guess I'd talk about it through the framework of my work. And it goes back a little bit. What I was saying earlier about we repress, deny, shame, disassociate from certain aspects of ourself. Feelings, impulses, desires, needs. When we're children, we all do it. And so in that place we form a defense or maybe an idealized self image or a mask. And that's sort of our operating system for the world. And we become identified with it and it feels like who we are. But very often there's. We hit a certain point in our life where things aren't working or we experience some frustration or dissatisfaction. We see patterns that are happening and they happen over and over again. At a certain point you realize, well, this must be me. There must be something going on in my unconscious that I have to confront because this. That I'm creating this. And so what, you know that you're in that moment that you're not. You're not present, right? You're not present with some aspect of yourself. There's something in your unconscious that's guiding you. And so the work for. For me is to help people feel what they had to repress, right? Feel the. The pain, feel the rage, feel the fear. Like, feel it, like, literally in their body, like, liberate all those emotions that we hold on to that are stuck there and creating the cognitive distortions. And so it's. For me, presence is an embodied experience. It's the willingness to feel everything inside of us. Like life happens and we have feelings, and there's a certain tendency to want to control those feelings or manage those feelings. And I think that there's a wisdom in that. But if you do that from a state of repression or fear, it doesn't work. And so in the place where I'm not present, let's say with my wife, it's because there's something inside me that I don't want to face or feel. That's it. So that's the frame that I put on it. And the question I ask is, well, what is it that you're unwilling to feel? Because it means that there's something in the present moment that scares you. Now, it might be irrational, might not make sense to your conscious mind because you're a grown man, but it might be the fear of. Of the child that that's. That's coming up in that moment. And so I work with presence, you know, through people's emotions, through people's feelings and all the distortions that. That get created. Does that. Does that make sense, what I'm saying?

[A]

Yeah, it does. It does, it does. Do we need to become stronger then, in a way, in order to be more present, more resilient, more powerful, stronger.

[B]

More vulnerable, I think is really the work, because feeling feelings that scare us, we're forced to be vulnerable. What does vulnerable mean? To me, it just means openness and truth, right? And so there's a strength that it requires in order to be vulnerable. And that was a reframe that I had to make for myself because I had all of those typical masculine images about what strength meant. And then I realized the strongest thing that I can do is to tell the truth and to reveal myself, like, to be honest about what's actually going on inside me without shame. And again, you know, going that Creates all kinds of images. I can hear the men in your audience, you know, saying, well, what are you supposed to feel? All your feelings. And, you know, well, it's not exactly that, but to be with them, to learn to be with, right? To learn to build a container for them, to not be ashamed of anything, really. Your light and your dark. And I think it's. I think there's so much that. So many ways that we avoid vulnerability. We avoid. And, you know, showing our shadow, we avoid showing our pain. We avoid acknowledging our fear. And probably the deepest one for most people is we avoid feeling how much we love. Because there's nothing more vulnerable than letting your love, your passion, your light, right, like, shine through. Like, most people's major problem is they protect it, right? Because once you're all the way here with all of who you are, you're not in control anymore, right? Like, you're. You're completely exposed. That's the only way to be fully present in the world is to be completely exposed. And most people are unwilling to tolerate that level of vulnerability, myself included. That's all I'm working on, you know, like, because that restriction I can see fractal out into all of the. The things in my life, right? It fractals out into my career, fractals out into, you know, the work and how I'm approaching it. It fractals out into my relationship. So it really, for me becomes about one thing. It's like, can I. Can I risk exposing? Revealing maybe is a better word. All of. Of who I am. The good, the bad, the ugly.

[A]

I like the reframe around strength to show your vulnerabilities. I think. I don't know. Acknowledging your weaknesses is not the same to. It's not the same as surrendering to them. And the only way to overcome your limitations is to actually know what they are.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

So I don't think. I don't know. I still haven't been able to sort of fully thread the needle with the whole men's distaste for showing vulnerability and openness and stuff like that. Because I don't think it's massively aspirational from really, the guys, even the guys that do it. I think there's still a sense of, like, fear and ick and concern and shame around it. And I. I get the sense that in order for you to say something, that a guy will want to go and do it. It needs to be two things at once. It needs to both understand the fact that they have difficulties and challenges but also not patronize them at the same time or make them feel weak. And that's a really difficult line to balance. Yeah, unbelievably difficult.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Things are hard for you, and you can get through them, and I understand and I can support you, but you don't need the support. But it's there in case you need it. It's like, you know, you're permanently having to fucking caveat your way around the fragile masculine ego.

[B]

Yeah, well, you know what? It's. It's. It's great. All you, really, all people need is for their feelings to be validated. I understand why you'd be scared. That's usually enough. I understand why your heart is broken. Like, not get over it. There's another girl out there for you. It's like. And that, you know, that's. That's how I approach all of my sessions with people. It's like they. They have a story about what happened to them. I'm not necessarily validating their interpretation of events, but I'm validating their feeling, their. Their experience of that event. And because that's real for them, I mean, you can't argue with somebody's feelings. And so once they're. Once they feel seen and acknowledged in their feelings, I. I think that creates a kind of a safety and a resonance that then they can meet. Go meet the challenge or take responsibility. But until that happens for a lot of people, they get stuck in the feeling, right? And they don't. They can't move past it and they attach it to a story. So, I mean, that's. It's. And it's as simple as that. Just acknowledge your feelings within yourself. That's all you have to do. I'm sad. That's it. That's. You're good, bro. You know, this girl broke up with me. My heart is broken. It's like, that's fine, you know, just. Just acknowledge it within yourself and be with that for a second. Don't. Don't romanticize it. Don't succumb to it. Don't indulge it, but be with it. Like, of course your heart's going to break. I mean, are you human if your heart's not going to break? I mean, it's a beautiful thing to have a broken heart. Like, let yourself be in that experience of it, right? And eventually you're going to. You're going to move on from it or whatever. I'm filled with rage right now. I want to fucking kill the world. Just be wherever you are with what it is you're feeling. And if you let, if you presence that, if you let yourself be with that, what you'll find is that you'll move very quickly out of that into the next thing.

[A]

Yeah. Chris Bumstead, bodybuilder man he talks about how if you don't feel the bad, you don't feel the good. So I kind of sort of think about emotions doing that. What people want to do is to be able to sort of slide them up and down a scale. So I want. I want this particular window of emotions, but I just want them at the top end. I want like all of these good ones here. But I. I don't think that that's the way that it works. I had actually, for the first time ever at the start of this year, like, really, really sort of bad couple of days, a really sad few days, went through a breakup and it sucked. And then found myself randomly laughing hysterically in the Uber on the way to therapy, like three days later. And I was like, what the fuck am I doing? And that was the first time that I'd ever thought, oh, emotions really are a rollercoaster. They actually are a roller coaster. And after this huge emotional release, another one comes on the kind of the. What's the opposite end of this scale? It's sort of the. It swung one way and then it swings back the other.

[B]

Well, the illusion is we're stuck in it forever. And because that, that, that was not to bring it back to the therapy model, but that was the child's experience. Like when you're a little child with your parents, you are stuck in that situation, you're stuck there forever. So the feelings you're have, you have there feel like they're. They're forever, they're eternal, that you can never get out of that situation. And because that actually is in fact, reality, it's not true anymore as an adult. But that fear that I'm going to be stuck in this is forever. Like, when I'm working with people, very often it's. If I'm encouraging them to go into their rage or their sadness, whatever it is, very often the reaction is like, I feel if I go into this, it's never going to end. It's a bottomless pit and it's going to completely consume me. And that's the illusion that they're living in. It's not that way at all. Once they allow themselves to go there and express it and feel it and let it move through them. Usually what happens is they. They feel lighter, obviously, but they come into more connection with, with themselves and, and then with other people because they're not carrying this around, you know, they're not, you know, weighed down with this, with this burden and, and, and using all of this energy, you know, physical and psychic energy. They're not using that to, to repress it anymore. So they're, they're lighter, they're more here. And I think, you know, that's. Again, it's, you know, the work that I do is, it's so unique in that way because of the, the tools that we use. You know, I mean, breath work is becoming really popular now, and I think that's, that's great, but there's not really many places where you can go to really, like, get it all out, you know, to really, like, express it, like, unbridled, whatever it is. I mean, that's always the invitation at my workshops. Don't hold anything back. And people are like, what do you mean? I'm like, you don't have to hold anything back, anything at all, at any moment. You can just, like, let it come through. And obviously we, there's certain rules and a container that we could create, but that is, you know, terror. It's liberating on one sense. It's like, oh, that sounds exciting. But it's also terrifying because. And I'm there to challenge you when I feel like you're holding back. Like, what is it you're holding back and why? Well, I know why. Because you're afraid, you know, and if you didn't hold back, what. And they have all kinds of images about what's going to happen, but, you know, on the other side of it, they're just. It's, it's. Yeah, they're free.

[A]

I love it. David Sutcliffe, ladies and gentlemen. David, where should people go? They want to keep up to date with all of this stuff that you're doing?

[B]

Go to my website, DavidSutcliffe.com. it's all there.

[A]

Dude, you're sick. I really appreciate the energy that you bring to this, and we've got lots more to talk about, so let's bring you back on soon.

[B]

Appreciate you, man. Thank you for having me.

[A]

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