#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards

#213 - Finding Hope: Jonathan Labman's Journey from Trauma to Transformation

• Jordan Edwards • Season 5 • Episode 213

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What happens when a journey through life's darkest challenges becomes a beacon of hope for many? Join us as we sit down with Jonathan Labman, a spiritual awakening professional whose story begins in a difficult childhood and leads to a remarkable transformation. Jonathan opens up about the trials he endured, from abuse and bullying to the life-altering decision to attend an international high school in Wales. Through his conversion to evangelical Protestantism, Jonathan found new paths to explore personal growth and resilience, which now empower him to aid others in overcoming anxiety and stress.

Can leaving a restrictive environment spark a quest for true freedom and self-acceptance? Jonathan shares his intense experiences within a brainwashing cult during the turbulent times of the 1970s and 1980s. This compelling narrative uncovers the psychological trap of repetition compulsion and the difficult choices faced during the AIDS epidemic. The story is a raw and honest exploration of trauma and identity, illustrating the struggle and eventual triumph of embracing one’s true self despite societal pressures.

Could mindfulness and creative exploration be the keys to a fulfilled life? As Jonathan guides us through practices in mindfulness and meditation, he reveals how these tools can reconnect us to reality and reduce stress in our digital age. We delve into the joy of discovering unique talents and passions, urging a departure from defining ourselves solely by professional roles. With insights like those from Jill Bolte-Taylor's "Whole Brain Living," Jonathan encourages us to balance our logical and spiritual selves, uncover hidden talents, and embrace the journey of self-discovery toward happiness.

To Learn More about Jonathan Labman Please go to: https://edwards.consulting/blog

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Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/



Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.

Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call

Speaker 1:

Hey, what's going on, guys? We've got a special guest today. Here we have Jonathan Labman. He has a background in trauma, abuse and cults and is a spiritual awakening professional with over 24 years of experience. He's done thousands of breakthroughs for people with abuse, anxiety and stress, with John's help, to achieve spiritual liberation. In this episode we're going to discuss, we're going to touch on a few different things. We're going to touch on John's story and why we all should have hope and why we can create the life that we want. So, john, welcome to the Hashtag Clocked In podcast. How did you even get like? Your story is so incredible. Where did it?

Speaker 2:

all start off for you Well, Jordan. First, thanks for having me and second, to your audience, please give this guy some likes and five-star reviews. He's doing this for free, from the goodness of his art and from love for the world. So we get a great education because of people like Jordan, so give him some love back. And so where it started for me. Well, first of all, I am a licensed professional counselor as well as a spiritual awakening teacher. There's a long way to get there, and I started out in a middle class home near Trenton, New Jersey, where I was sexually abused from the age of three probably till about eight or nine. It's hard to remember all the details and because of that, I was very uncoordinated, because trauma wrecks your brain and you know there's some actual permanent effects of trauma that we're just learning about now.

Speaker 2:

And so when I went to school like I couldn't play any kind of team sports, so I was, you know, last picked and bullied and, you know, picked on and just harassed all the time. And by the time I got to seventh grade I was also a trained singer from a very young age and I was made to sing a soprano solo as a boy soprano in the seventh grade. So after that I got the labels fag, fairy, sissy, mama's boy, queer, blah, blah, blah, okay. And I was so miserable by the time I was about 15 years old that I started looking for a way out of public school and also a way out of sort of a meaningless and life that was full of suffering. And somebody came to my school and showed a film to all of us in the 10th grade 750 students about an international high school on the south coast of Wales in the UK, in a castle that had been owned and renovated by William Randolph Hearst, and I was like Zoom, sign me up. I went right down to the front of that auditorium. I don't know why. I thought I could even get into a place like that, but I applied. And then, at about the same time, I started studying the New Testament.

Speaker 2:

Even though I was raised in a Reformed Jewish family, I didn't really have a belief in God at all. And at that time I got accepted to that school but they said I wouldn't be qualified for financial aid. And then there was a postal strike this is 1971, so there's no internet right. Long distance calls are a fortune and they're like we'll send you a letter about the financial aid as soon as we can get a letter to you. And in the meantime I was praying to this God that I thought might exist. God, if you exist, do a miracle, get me and get me that financial aid to school.

Speaker 2:

Because they said you know your family's. Get me that financial aid to school. Because they said you know your family's too, middle class, we're not going to give you financial aid. I was like please, please, please, please, please. A month later I got the financial aid to go for two years to Wales. Oh wow. And as a result I converted and I became an evangelical Protestant, because that's what I was studying when I was praying to this God. This version of God was, you know, the evangelical Protestant version of God. So I became really pretty much of a religious fanatic at that point and that became the way that I tried to deal with my problems, all of my problems.

Speaker 1:

Oh my goodness, and how was that in Wales? Because I think it makes a lot of sense If you're having issues change scenery, right Well, yeah, but in AA and NA they call that geographics.

Speaker 2:

Right, because what you don't know is your audience may know this you take your problems with you wherever you go. Yes, yes, right. So the thing that happened was it was an amazing experience. I mean, you would say it was beyond a fable. It was fabulous, right, yeah, it's an overused word, but there really were. There were kids from 50 countries. We even had kids from communist China in 1972 for about six weeks. Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:

And I got to travel in Europe and I got to sing in. We opened an opera house in Germany with our little, our little chorus and I sang a solo with a duet from the marriage of Figaro. I mean all these crazy memories I have. I got to meet favorite famous evangelicals. I got to travel to Switzerland and meet a guy named Francis Schaeffer who introduced me to the college that I was going to go to.

Speaker 2:

So it looked on the surface like a great experience, but I was very anxious and very confused. I had a lot of same-sex attractions which I didn't know what to do with and didn't want to admit to myself, and it was very difficult because they were cramming three years of study into two years. So we went to school in the evening and we went to school on Saturday mornings, and every afternoon we had an activity, and two of those had to be a public service activity. So I joined the social services unit. I used to visit an old widowed lady who was probably suffering from dementia, and also I went to a children's home for disabled kids. So there was all this activity all the time. But I was really very anxious and suffering from a fair amount of depression and what's called dissociation, which is that you're just so overwhelmed that you kind of go into freeze mode, like the possum that plays dead mode like the possum that plays dead. So it's like your logic goes offline. It's very hard to focus and concentrate.

Speaker 2:

So that I took with me, and so, even though I graduated successfully by the skin of my teeth, it was very difficult, even though I'd been an a student here. And when I came back to this country I went to haverford college, which was all male, in 1973. And again, the attractions. I didn't know what to do with them and we started studying the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, which is, you know, basically you're making the universe up in your head. It doesn't really exist in the form that you see it, and I'm like, okay, I really started to have a a spiritual experience of dissolving into everything else, but I thought I was going crazy and also the same-sex attractions were making me crazy as well. By the end of that semester I I really had a nervous breakdown and I left school after one semester. I thought I was going to flunk but.

Speaker 1:

I got.

Speaker 2:

I got a's and b's, but I I really felt like I was flunking because my whole life was kind of falling apart again and I was dissociating again like I had at school before. So I ended up at a christian college the one that this guy in switzerland had recommended to me and I was there for one semester and then I thought this isn't at all what I thought it was going to be like. Where's the Holy Spirit? Where's God? Where's a relationship with the divine? Where's all that juicy kind of right brain stuff that I'm supposed to experience? And it wasn't there.

Speaker 2:

So I read a book about a community in california that was trying to duplicate the life of the early church in jerusalem after jesus had died and was resurrected allegedly resurrected, right, okay, and I sold everything I owned and went out there and joined that commune. But within about a month I was really, really clinically depressed and I was washing test tubes in a hospital laboratory. That's the kind of work I was doing to support myself. It was ridiculous, right. I was bored out of my mind. And again, where was this promised juicy experience of oneness with the Holy Spirit? You know, I just didn't see it.

Speaker 2:

And what they did after a couple months was they put me on a month-long fast water only in isolation, and by the end of that month I'd started at 140 pounds. I was 115 pounds. I've been writing to my parents and they said you know, if you don't come home, we're going to come get you. And the people in the community said well, this worked for a woman with postpartum depression. It should work for you, but it's not working for you and you can do whatever you want. They can't come and get you. And I'm like, yeah, I better go home because I don't know what the heck's going on here. But I feel worse and worse. I got home and within about 10 days I was hospitalized for major depressive disorder and schizoaffective disorder, which is a kind of dissociative disorder, and I was put in a locked ward in a private mental hospital and given electroconvulsive therapy, shock therapy.

Speaker 2:

Three times a week, and every time I was about to have that treatment I thought I was either going to die or going to lose my mind entirely, lose my identity. So after two months of that, my parents took me out of there. They didn't think it was doing a good enough job. Eventually I got into a rehab program, went back to school, to the same college. In the meantime my parents announced they were getting a divorce.

Speaker 2:

So after all this instability I had to stay at college that summer and then, you know, there was no home to go to anymore there, you know, my father was already married to his second wife. He didn't have any room for me. My mother didn't have any room in her, you know, one bedroom or two bedroom apartment, whatever. I was like, you know, on my own suddenly. So I survived that first summer. But then during that next year I was invited to go to a community up in in the valley forge, pennsylvania area. That was, you know, one of the churches that formed the denomination that created the college I went to. Right so it was you.

Speaker 1:

So it was you constantly looking for these different areas and these different groups and being accepted somewhere.

Speaker 2:

I was looking for love and family and I was looking for God and peace and all these things that were promised in the New Testament and by all these Christian people that nobody delivered on. But nobody, including me, knew that I had been traumatized as a kid. I didn't remember that for another 30 years, until I was 52. Oh my God, and I wasn't going to deal with my sexuality. I thought being gay was a death sentence and in 1969, 70, 71 it was. You could be killed for being gay and if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, you would be. So I was like just immerse me in my religious life and my relationship with god and everything will go away, everything will be fine.

Speaker 2:

But the community I ended up with in the Valley Forge area. I took vows to be a member there for my life, my whole life. Right Like wedding vows, right Like you just got married, right and you're supposed to obey them in doctrine or you know interpretation of the Bible and in your life. So they had final say over everything you said, did and thought. And just after I went back to school for my last semester, the elder that I had stayed with that summer and his whole family was excommunicated and that means he was considered an apostate or somebody who was going to go to hell. Oh wow, and I'd stayed with them all summer and they'd been really nice to me. So I was a little confused, to say the least. But I made a promise to God, I thought so I stayed, and over six years that place devolved into a brainwashing cult.

Speaker 1:

And that's the most interesting thing, because people don't realize that the circles they're in and I want the audience to realize this that when you're in different circles, like you guys might want to make more money.

Speaker 1:

So like, if you look around and all your friends are making a similar amount, then you might have to go find a new circle. Or if all your friends are you want everyone to get in shape and all your friends are a little bit heavier, then you might need to find friends who are very much in shape. The reason I'm saying this is because the people you're around cause you to think differently. So the reason, the benefit of this nowadays is that you can just turn on this podcast, get some different perspectives and think about this a little differently. But when John's going through this in 1973, 1974, 1975, there is no phone, there is no other perspective, there is complete immersion, in which case the only way out is mentally out, which he said he was already struggling with. So I just want to clarify that, just because it's very important for us to realize that we can create our own environments, but, like back at that time, it was very difficult and challenging to do that.

Speaker 2:

That's a really good point and you know I don't think so much about the differences from the perspective of the young generation. But you guys can find any information on any group, any negative feedback that you want. You have access to all kinds of information. Now, some of it isn't accurate, okay, and we know that, but they call it pardon me misinformation or malinformation. But you know, back in the day I just had what was in front of me and maybe some books, and so you know I got, you know I got settled in a, in a in a house with four or five other guys I had. I finally had a sense of family.

Speaker 2:

The woman who initially talked to me, who really ran the cult, gave me more love in two hours and more attention than anybody had ever given to me in my life. So it looked like there was somebody that was finally going to love me and understand me and help me. And what I didn't realize was I was going through what we call in psychology a repetition compulsion. I was finding somebody similar to my abuser, who had looked like they were going to give me love and then turn that love on its ear and turn it into fear and terror. And over six years, that place devolved into a brainwashing called. Every move you made was watched. Every sin that you allegedly committed had to either be confessed in public or discussed in public in front of everybody else. So you're constantly being humiliated and and humbled. It was excruciating, but it was familiar, right. So when, when we grew up, with trauma, discomfort, insecurity, anxiety is familiar. It feels like who we are, yeah, and so it was like OK, like okay, well, this is kind of familiar. So, and I made a promise, so I'm sticking around.

Speaker 2:

Well, toward the end, somebody tried to burn the church down. No way, no kidding. And rather than the elders and this woman behind them, rather than them saying, oh, it must be our fault, we're just, you know, creating bad juju in the neighborhood, they said all of you guys who are in the church, you're hiding secret sin, even though you're Christians. You've been living this, you know, incredibly intense life, giving a tenth of your pre-tax income to the church, keeping the Sabbath holy. On Sundays we weren't allowed to work, no electronic media, which was television and radio in those days, and you're in church all day. And, by the way, we're also celibate, all of us in our early 20s, totally celibate. We weren't allowed to touch ourselves. No kidding, it was crazy. And after all that they were saying you guys are hiding secret sin, so you're all suspended from communion, you're all going to be excommunicated if you don't fess up your secret sin.

Speaker 2:

And finally, about six months into that process, I said you know, guys, I think I'm gay, I have all these attractions. And they were like, yeah, we don't think that's it. Because you never acted on any of that. I'm like what, what else is there? I don't have anything else to hide. What do you think I'm hiding? I didn't remember that I'd been sexually abused as a child. That was totally not in my memory at all. It was dissociated.

Speaker 2:

So for the next six months I had this. You know, double bind your audience may be familiar with. Somebody gives you two choices. My choices were this If you're gay and you leave the church, you're going to get AIDS and die and go to hell, because this was 1984 and AIDS epidemic was raging and there was no cure. Was raging and there was no cure. That's choice number one. That's door number one, jonathan. Door number two is if you carry your pews back into the church and you haven't fessed up your secret sin, according to our understanding of what that probably is, you're doubly damned to hell. And you're going to go to hell. I'm like, okay, damned if I go back, damned if I leave.

Speaker 2:

Six months I paced the floors in my group housing situation until 3 o'clock in the morning and then went to work every morning at 7.30, trying to figure out what in the world to do, because I didn't have independent thinking. I couldn't make a different choice. Finally, we were literally carrying pews back into the church. Yeah, it was a Saturday morning. I was like I've just got to get out of here. So all the guys were somewhere else. I don't know whether they're doing some athletic thing or what they were doing, but I had an excuse. I packed my car twice, ran to the nearest storage place, threw everything into storage and fled for my life, really.

Speaker 2:

And the next day I was in a therapist's office and that therapist saved my life. Wow so, and I was 29 years old when that happened. So I'm just a little. I was just a little older than you are now. Yeah, and I had.

Speaker 2:

I had a job, but I had no money saved. I had. I had almost no possessions. I just had my bedroom furniture. I had a car that was constantly breaking down and I thought, oh my God, this is God's judgment on me. I'm going to go to hell and I'm going to get in an accident in a broken down car. I was absolutely terrorized. Yeah, but that therapist she saved my life. And here's the point for your audience that's so important. You can go through all kinds of crap, guys and gals and listen to all kinds of people give you all kinds of advice about your life and you can end up feeling absolutely hopeless and in despair, like you can't do anything about your life. But somewhere, even in the brainwashed person, like I was in those days, somewhere inside of you, there's a voice that says yeah.

Speaker 1:

I don't know about this.

Speaker 2:

Maybe they're not really right, maybe I'm nearly not going to go to hell, maybe they're wrong about everything. Or maybe I ought to at least ask a question about whether they're right, because we weren't allowed to ask whether they were right or wrong. After a while we couldn't question anything. So that therapist. First thing she said to me was I was like I feel suicidal. She's like why are you here then? Like, what do you mean? Well, she said, if, if you were really suicidal and didn't have any hope, you wouldn't be in my office. I'm like oh, you mean I, oh, I really have hope.

Speaker 2:

She uncovered that I had hope. She uncovered that there was something inside of me that knew better than the cult, the brainwashing cult that I had lived in. And over the next 18 months, she and I uncovered all of that. What was true for me? What was I feeling? What was my sexuality? What was my orientation? What did I want to do with my life? And that woman, really, she saved my life. She also gave me a pattern for what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, although I didn't get to it for a while, because the first thing I wanted to do was I wanted to go to New York and be a Broadway singer.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, but it's. I want to just take a moment here because it's so important that when we change our inputs, we can change our outputs absolutely. When you start getting different insights, it can change your perspective completely. And even though john the past 29 years had so much damage abuse of being in the cult, like all of it it allowed him to open. He knew better, deep down, and there's a lot of us who know better and we know that we have more opportunities and we can do more.

Speaker 1:

So but the funny thing is, when we do stuff, we always have to do it for everyone's like oh, you got to make money or you got to do this or you got to, but there's many different ways of payment. You know what I mean. So it's that understanding of better understanding the world and having a more holistic perspective that really gives to that. So it comes down to not just, hey, what am I doing right now and what's making money, but it's like what do I even enjoy? Like the biggest project is who are we really? And that's one of the conversations I have with one of my mentors. He's 79 years old and he says the same thing where he's like the project's not about making all this money or doing all this or doing all that. It's about learning who you are, what you enjoy, and then just taking inventory on that, because there's so many times we're in places where we just we'll sit there and go. I don't like this. Then why are you here, right? Which is so important?

Speaker 2:

it it is, and you know your audience has a wide range of opportunities to study and look at all different kinds of perspectives. And you know what I did with the rest of my life I'll be 70 in three months so what I did with the rest of my life was start looking at other perspectives and what I found was that, you know, the human brain has two lobes the left and the right lobe. Just mentioning a book I'm reading called Whole Brain Living by Jill Bolte-Taylor, which is a really great resource for your audience as well. I'll be mentioning my own book later, but you know she basically says you need to develop your left brain, which is all your logic and your words and your interaction with the world and your survival instincts. But you also need to develop the right brain, which is your interaction with spirituality, with what we would call the ineffable, with universe or God or the absolute or whatever name we want to call that. Your sense that you're actually part of a whole is in your right brain. Your sense of the fact that this present moment is all there is and it's an eternal present moment. That's in your right brain. And what I found over many years is you have to develop both sides. So I've worked both as a psychologist and as a spiritual awakening teacher.

Speaker 2:

Because psychology works great in the left brain, the right brain. You need what's commonly called spirituality for that, because if you don't have that and you keep trying to go after what your ego says, your ego is the source of your problems. So if you can transcend your ego which is what the spiritual enlightenment is about most of your problems are going to fall away. Not that it's not hard to be here in the physical body, in the physical world, because it is. Everybody knows it is, and lately it's gotten harder, right For sure, it's gotten harder. But we have the capacity to deal with all that.

Speaker 2:

But the thing is that nobody teaches us how to even be a human being. Yes, right, so you don't learn how to deal with your thoughts and your feelings and your physical sensations in school. They don't teach you any of that. They don't teach your audience and you and me that 90 to 95% of our thoughts are false, false right. Ask any cognitive behavioral therapist about that, any psychologist. Not only that, they don't teach you that those false thoughts produce very strong negative emotions Sadness, fear and anger, and so a lot of the suffering that we have in our lives is self-created, because we believe thoughts that are actually false.

Speaker 2:

And false thoughts, whether spoken outwardly to a lie detector machine or spoken inwardly, just in our own head, produces a physiological response called an adrenal release. Hello, why does the lie detector machine work? Because it measures the adrenal release results Heart rate increases, respiration increases, perspiration increases, blood pressure increases. Listening to your own thoughts, audience every day, and not questioning whether they're true or not, leads to all kinds of adrenal release, all kinds of fight or flight response every single day of your life. Wow.

Speaker 2:

And if your emotion, however, is coming from something real like grandma just died and I'm grieving and I'm crying and I want to plant a million trees in grandma's honor. So I'm going to take my emotion, which is energy in motion. If it's from a real source, something that really happened, that emotion is energy in motion that leads to insight and wisdom and can lead to action. Nobody teaches us that either. So we don't know what to do when we get angry. We don't know. Is my anger coming from something real, like somebody just stepped on my toe, or am I making something up in my head that's making me angry? And so we make all kinds of chaos in our lives because nobody ever teaches us how to deal with thoughts and feelings. Yes, your whole left brain is constantly confused and you're you're making all kinds of impulsive decisions that are destructive, and you're right. What's that?

Speaker 1:

what would some of those impulsive decisions be?

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm leaving my girlfriend because it looks like she cheated on me. Based on the text that I just got from my best friend, instead of going right to the source.

Speaker 1:

Yes, the rational thoughts are missing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like, okay, somebody's telling me something or I think something. Like man, where was she for the last hour? She didn't respond to my text. She must be cheating on me. I've had clients in my office telling me that's what they think. And what does that do Then? That means he's going to go yell at her and she's done nothing wrong and she's going to say well, F you, buddy out of my face. I don't want to deal with some crazy who's making false accusations about me. That's just one example of what we do, yeah.

Speaker 1:

No, absolutely. I appreciate that because it brings it more to light where it's creating this chaos, creating the destruction, creating the different emotional states that they're trying to recreate, even though they don't realize that that's one of the ones that they hold, even though they might not want to.

Speaker 2:

Right, you know your audience is holding emotions, that's the other thing. Then we're all taught to repress emotion. Men and women both I mean women get a little more leeway for crying, but men and women, both in my offices, have told me that they're not allowed to express what they feel. Okay, well, what does that mean? So that means now I have all this emotion, I have all this thought. This, the false thought, has led to all this kind of roiling, negative emotion. Now I've got to hold it all in because I've got to look like a good person and I'm not allowed to be emotional. So now, on top of everything else, I'm tense in my physicality. I'm not breathing enough, because that's the way we. We quelch emotion by shutting down our breath and tightening up our muscles. Yeah, and we wonder why our fathers had heart attacks at age 50 or strokes, right, yeah, so, like, all this repressed emotion then leads to more trouble. So what?

Speaker 2:

What I do in my work is I help people to unwind all this suppressed stuff and then and in a way that is manageable, not in a way that's overwhelming, it's not like you're going to have a panic attack. You know, when you come work with somebody like me it's like we want to kind of open the gates on the hoover dam and let some of lake mead out. All that emotional repression is like a big lake of of, you know, force field water behind us. We got to let that out. Yeah, once we do that, then people can begin to see oh, I'm feeling this, where is it coming from? Or I'm thinking this what is that producing in my life? My false thoughts produce chaos. It produces fear of the future. Your people watching, listening today. They want a better future, but there's a whole lot of fears that their mind is generating, based on past experience, which says to them you can't have a better future because of what used to happen. Yeah, your future is a catastrophe. In y Yiddish a cholera. It's a cholera.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I mean it's true, it's true you literally sit there and when you see these people like earlier this year I ended up doing a sabbatical and it was like three months and I was like, oh my God, because you start thinking about all these different ideas and these things and you're like I gonna be homeless, like I'm gonna die, like and everything, every single road leads to death and you're like it's just not true. Like there's many people have done many other things a lot longer and a lot different environment, and they didn't die. Like no one died. They're fine, right so.

Speaker 2:

So typically, all of almost all of our thoughts about the future are negative and they're all lies, because nobody made us a soothsayer or a palm reader or a crystal ball reader. We don't know the future. You're making stuff up about the future in your head. You can guarantee it's false. It's a lie, yeah, and that stops people from doing what they really want to do and love to do. That stops them from exploring who they are, what their are. Right, you're a unique human being, you know. The hindus say that you are god itself on the chair. That's pretty cool. They say I am atman brahman three sanskrit words that I know about, the only three that I do know right.

Speaker 2:

This individual consciousness that you are is God itself. Yeah, so, and that you have that connection, you have that capacity in your right brain. It doesn't mean you're omnipotent, you can't do anything, you don't have all the power in the universe, or your omniscient.

Speaker 2:

You can't know everything in the universe but you have a sense of eternity and infinity. It's in you already, yes, and if you're not in touch with that, it's because your left brain is too confused. You need to sort that out so you can get into your right brain. Right brain practices are easy. What are?

Speaker 2:

some of those meditation, mindfulness, like just being present in the moment. If you walk outside and you just look at the sky and you don't think anything, it'll feel like you're disappearing into the sky. That's your sense of infinity. Right there, your listeners. They have a current, present moment experience. They can only experience with their senses the present moment. Past and future are all ideas. They're thoughts. They don't exist Now we use them as if they exist. The only thing that we can experience as human beings is present moment. So guys traditionally go hunting and fishing and go play golf, because that's where they actually experience the present moment awareness.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and this is something I've realized.

Speaker 2:

Or they surf right.

Speaker 1:

Or they skate or they ski or even scuba dive or doing martial arts or any of these or go on a run, like. Because when you do these different activities it forces you to be present and when you're present you can be so much more of yourself and you feel so much better. That's why you referenced the, the wedding. Literally when I got married, I before I did I got there like two hours before dressed and I gave my brother who was the best man my phone and he's like, oh, you don't need your phone. I'm like I do not need my phone for the next eight hours, like, and that's what I did. I just gave it to him and then I grabbed it afterwards.

Speaker 1:

But there's too many inputs where, when you can remove inputs, it allows you to be so much more present, and even these podcasts. That's why, like, I use the phone as the camera. So I'm having this super present conversation and I might be taking notes, but at the same time, I'm trying to get as much out of this as I can, and that's usually what it ends up being is these present moments, and then it fills you up Because then you could check all the notifications afterwards, you can do all the activities afterwards, and that's why it's good to do these drop down things.

Speaker 2:

100 I think so. And and with the computer in your hand, right? I used my first computer in 1981. It was a word processor, that was all it did, yes, right, and. And I ran a word processing department for an engineering firm, so we were like, like state-of-the-art that you know. But now you've got the whole world in your hand and it's full of non-sense. Yes, not, it means it's not related to your present sensory experience, which is where you're connected to reality.

Speaker 1:

So, listeners, if you feel like disconnected and fritzed out and depressed and anxious, first thing to do is put your damn phone down yes, yes turn it off I've noticed a lot of that yeah, go outside and smell the air literally when these people have, uh challenges, they'll sit there in the moment, have a moment, and then they'll just start scrolling, because it's the disassociating of the feelings and you want to actually feel those, to reach that underlying pinning of like hey, why did I actually get pissed off there, like why am I really getting there?

Speaker 2:

right. Your emotions audience are your friends. Yeah, your emotions actually are energy in motion. If they're coming from a good place, they will move you in a new direction if you look at them carefully and track where they're coming from now. If they're coming from some nonsense idea in your head yeah, which I love saying, I love saying it okay, then don't listen to them. Yeah, all what do I know about anybody else, what they're saying, thinking or doing? Nothing unless I ask them. So all my thoughts about other people are false, all my thoughts about the future are false and most of my thoughts about myself are false and, in fact, thought itself is not sense. Reality, it's nonsense. It's a later recounting by the mental mind of what just happened. So even when we're talking, we're not talking. Felt, true, lived experience. That's all right, brain stuff, and none of us have been taught almost any of that.

Speaker 2:

When I started out in this field in 2000, the idea of mindfulness and meditation was not mainstream. It was oga, boga, boga. It was woo, woo, woo, right. It was like new age bullshit, right. And now everybody says this like we've always talked about mindfulness and meditation but we haven't. So it's very simple the skills needed to be an effective human and to wake up to your spirituality, your spiritual side, your connection with the divine. Incredibly simple, ridiculously simple. You can go into a hundred million different cults and groups and religious orientations and do all their rituals and buy all their clothes and their jewelry and their furniture and you'll miss the point. The point is you are already connected to the divine and the divine itself. You just have to uncover that. You just need the simple skills to uncover that. That's what I teach.

Speaker 1:

I love it. I think it's awesome because you start to realize that it's not so much that you need anything, and it's that we all have hope.

Speaker 2:

We all have hope because it's all here already. It's all here already, you don't have to go anywhere else that maybe someone listening could take today.

Speaker 1:

That would maybe like move the needle for them in some sort of in their daily activities.

Speaker 2:

Okay, based on our conversation today, I would say take a half an hour and turn your phone off while you're wide awake and go take a walk outside. I love that. Or, if you don't have time for that, just turn away from the computer screen and take some deep breath. And take some deep breaths and listen to the sounds in the room for one minute One minute, it's absolutely. It'll reduce your stress levels by about 1% to 5% in a way that you can feel that's the beginning.

Speaker 2:

Then, very simply, if you started keeping track of what you thought every day yes, and what those thoughts made you feel yes, just, I have exercises in my book about this, so I'm gonna I'm gonna give your listeners my book at the end of this. I love it. So I've got it all laid out how to work with the thoughts, how to work with the emotions, how to work with trauma reactions, what we call flashback. I've got simple instructions on how to meditate, simple instructions on how to meditate, and you can be mindful listeners. You can be mindful just by noticing what the coffee tastes like this is actually water, but but.

Speaker 1:

But you bring up a valid point of actually going into your real emotions.

Speaker 1:

Because, yeah, I had, um, I had another guest come on and he talked about this idea of like burning memories and how to get super present.

Speaker 1:

And his idea was that you would stand there, look around, take everything in and then start to realize what do you feel, what do you hear, what do you think about, and you close your eyes and then you go burn it, burn it, burn it, and the idea would kind of come to him and he'd be able to transport himself to those different places because he was about to lose his vision and go blind. And it's just this. It's another very similar idea, where you sit there, slow down and realize that the cup is blue, realize that the mic is black, realize that the flower looks like a heart, realize all these things around you, because we miss so much, because we're trying to be so productive, but yet we're running so many hours of social media time and this and that and we don't have time and this, but like we actually did what the real action was, then you'd actually move the needle forward for you.

Speaker 2:

That's right, and it's as simple as stopping to breathe, and I would say even don't even pay attention to your thoughts. The whole point of meditation is that you are going back to sensory experience. In meditation, you're always focused on your breath. Yes, or some mantra, which is another kind of funny way to focus on your breath. Okay, and breath is a sensation, it's not a thought. Yeah, so what we're trying to do with meditation and with mindfulness and with being present in the moment is get back into the senses, and emotion is a subset of your senses. Yes, so emotion is really mostly felt along the spine. People don't even know. People think, oh, when I'm sad, it feels like it's out here somewhere. No, it's actually in here, yes, but again, no, jordan, nobody, nobody teaches us, no, how we even feel emotion.

Speaker 1:

I'm like we don't learn emotion, we don't learn how to actually build self-confidence or what even these words even mean what does self-confidence mean?

Speaker 2:

it doesn't mean an absence of fear. Yeah, it means okay, I feel afraid and I know I felt afraid a million times before and I just take my fear and walk it into the new thing that I want to do when I do it, and the fear eventually goes away. That's what confidence is about. It's not about a lack of fear. A lack of fear could just be plain stupidity. I better be afraid if I'm learning to rappel down a cliff and I don't know what I'm doing right, absolutely a hundred percent.

Speaker 1:

and it's funny because the more times you do the activity over and over again and this was even for me like I've worked out for many years. And we went to a new gym and I was like I'm intimidated, where do I go, what am I doing? And it's like, do you not know how to work out? And it's like, no, I know how to work out, but like these people are big.

Speaker 2:

I don't know how to work out here. Well, this is an interesting point. So there's a kind of fear of the new. Anything that's new to us, our animal brain will respond to like it's something dangerous. So, a new person, a new place, a new hobby, a new activity, a new gym, a new place to go for vacation, like Cabo, if you've never been there before, right, all of that can provoke excitement. Excitement, but it can provoke fear. It provokes an adrenal release.

Speaker 1:

So, and then we add a story to that and the story makes it five times worse and you, you bring up these major points because, like, the funny thing is that we've gone there before. Like we, we went to cabo for the honeymoon, but we've been there before. Like we, we went to cabo for the honeymoon, but we've been there before, but we never went to one of the hotels. But we went to this other hotel and it was like an all-inclusive, like a super nice one, and you end up going and it's like, oh my god, how could I go to this place and not know about this? Because there's the two sides of it, like you're saying the fear when you go in the, and then you get there and you're like, oh my, this is a thousand times better than before. Right, but this is true about your friends, this is true about the jobs you have, this is true about the restaurants you go to, this is true about everything.

Speaker 1:

Everyone sits there and goes wait, that's my favorite Asian spot. And it's like you never had a favorite asian spot before, that like there was a point when you had other things that were your favorites. And it's this idea of like, no matter what we do, no matter what we say, as long as we're trying new things, because even if you try a different hotel or a different restaurant and realize that one's not nearly as good as the other one, you won't feel regret. You'll feel revalidated that the restaurant that you chose as your favorite asian spot is still this single favorite asian spot, but with new information. This can always change, and that's what I kind of realized, because it's not indecisive. It's just as you pile in more information, it can always get better and better and better that's right.

Speaker 2:

We we learn and grow. That's part of the organism that we are. As human beings, we have a brain that will learn and grow until the very last days of our life. It's amazing and, and you know, at 70 I'm still reading new books and learning new things and going to new places and meeting all of these wonderful podcast hosts. Like you, you know we had this awesome. What 55-minute conversation for our preliminary. I'm like when would I have ever had a conversation with Jordan Edwards? I mean, I wouldn't have known you unless I'd done this.

Speaker 1:

And that's the thing that people don't realize is they set up situations that cause them to interact with people. So for myself, as I started this podcast, I think I just posted another one today, so it's episode 210, but there's still another in the archives. I've been doing it for like four years now and the thing I realized is that, no matter what happens, your network is your net worth. That's, your network is one of the biggest things you can have. So my thought is, if I can have people come on, some people are strategic, like hey, maybe this makes sense business wise, maybe this makes sense perspective wise. And you start to tickle like touch all these different pieces and you start to realize that you're like, oh, wait, a second, that guy is very interesting in this demographic. That one's very interesting in this demographic and it causes your brain to think differently, which I am. So I get excited about, because for me it's more about understanding, like, who these different incredible people are. And then, and then it's just, it's just, it cascades from there, because then you start looking at the compounding and like I have a whole sheet of all the different guests who have come on and it's like wait, that guy's that guy and it's like it combines it all. But you're absolutely right, I never would have spoken to someone who's been in a commune, who the spiritual awakening does all these different things right, if I didn't see the, the emails and we didn't contact and we didn't get connected and we didn't have those conversations and it's. But my point being here is that if I didn't step into the place of curiosity and be open to being a podcast host, then I never would put myself in a situation to interact with all these different people, because when you really think about it, most people stay in their circle, whether it's a work circle and they have their same four people, or it's a friendship circle and they have their same four people, because they don't prioritize other relationships, and I think that's not always true. I think it's good to meet new people and I think it's good to keep those alive.

Speaker 1:

And one of the tips or tricks that I'll throw everyone out there for the audience is it was just Thanksgiving. So one of the ways I maintain relationships with people is I text everybody who might be of importance or might be of a friend or whatever, or a friend I want to have or whatever it is, and I text them happy Thanksgiving and it's like, oh, but I, jordan's always a taker. No, no, you. You just got a thanksgiving text that says I'm grateful for you. You don't like, what is the person gonna say? They have to be like, oh, you too, or happy thanksgiving, or whatever it may be, just to realize that, like, hey, it's not all about that. But my thought on it is, if I send a text to this person, then that means we're friends like you know what I mean, and it's an easy way to like kind of get through that. So one of the things we talked about in our intro call is how to create happiness in our life. Yeah, what are some of the ways that people can do that? Through very easy activities.

Speaker 2:

So I, I think, paradoxically, the simplest way to create happiness is to realize that if, if you have self-esteem issues and you start looking at the thoughts you have about yourself and you start realizing that most of those negative thoughts are false, right away you're going to be happier as soon as you notice that those thoughts are false, that you know. You know you're not really too skinny or too tall or too this or too little that or not good enough for this or that. That, right away, can create a bit more happiness. What we were talking about earlier, which is have an experience of your senses in the present moment that creates a grin on your face when I say it. Right, you know what that feels like. Let your curiosity begin to guide you, because your curiosity is a right brain function, your openness to life is a right brain function and instead of letting those false fears about the future shut you down, okay, look and see. Is there anything to be afraid of if I try this impulsive new idea of mine? All right, let me see if there really is anything. But if it's really minor, then I'm just going to go try that new restaurant or that new hotel or that new relationship or that new gym and I'm going to see how it works, and right away there's a little uptick in happiness.

Speaker 2:

The major thing I would say for people, though listening, is you need to discover what's uniquely you. I like to think of people as a kaleidoscope. Every kaleidoscope has very different color crystals in it, and they keep changing configuration according to who you're with and what you're doing, but the color crystals are always pretty much the same. You're kind of given a certain specialty, a special uniqueness. You don't have to make yourself special. You're already unique. There will never be another one like you in the universe, even if they cloned you, because the clone's experiences would be different, right? They cloned you because the clones experiences would be different, right? So your uniqueness. The more of that you can bring out of your heart and give to the world, the more you can use all of your talents and abilities in your life, the happier you're going to be.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, and really stepping into who you are and what you enjoy, I think is so big and it starts off by doing different activities because you don't know what you enjoy, um, I think is so big and it starts off by doing different activities because you don't know what you're gonna love, you don't know what you're gonna enjoy, like that's right, and you have no idea. And like sometimes you do that for people and it completely changes everything. Like there was one time, um, yeah, there was one time for, uh, for my mom. Actually she ended up going, she was working out at home, and then we were like, oh, we'll get you a gym membership. So we got her this gym membership and we paid for the full year and then we gave it to her and like as a gift, like birthday, like Hanukkah, whatever, and, and in that year she became obsessed, she's like this is great, I love this. And now she's working out all the time.

Speaker 1:

And it's the point of, hey, sometimes you need to push people. And by pushing people, that means maybe paying for them, maybe providing them, because sometimes they can't do it on their own, even though it's a minor thing, but sometimes you got to push people and what that might look like is like buying them the experience, or maybe that's inviting them to the experience or opening their eyes to that, because otherwise they're not open to these ideas, and sometimes it takes a little bit of a push, but also getting around different people causes a push as well.

Speaker 2:

Right. So we call all of that encouragement right. Yes, and I'm giving a little of my courage to them to help them to get through that fear that they have Right and and that's a really great, that's a great gift. Now, you, you know, as a therapist and a teacher, I have to be careful that I'm not pushing too hard. You know, um, you kind of have to work the edge which you probably your audience is familiar with. There's just enough challenge, but not too much so that you're terror stricken, right, yes, enough challenge so that you feel the edge of fear. But you know, you've got to move through that. You've got to take your fear and do the thing anyway, and I think that's important, that you've got to take your fear and do the thing anyway, and I think that's important.

Speaker 2:

Other thing I would say about happiness is that as long as you're defining yourself by a set of words at all, what we call ego as long as you're living in ego and defending ego as if that's what you are, you're going to be unhappy If you realize that ego is like. So the analogy I like to use is you trying to define yourself with words is like trying to put the ocean in a glass of water. You are connected to everything that is, and you're trying to define yourself with a little tiny set of words, which you then defend yes because, yeah, 100, because words have limitations.

Speaker 1:

And then that's why it's funny. It's like john, what do you like? We were literally having this discussion before the podcast. I go, john, it's hard to like put in your intro because you've done so many different things. And it's like because when you ask most people, hey, john, what do you do? And they're like I'm a accountant or I'm a this, and it's like no, no, you're, you're much more than that. Like you're telling me you, you don't like. Maybe you love bird watching or maybe you love going on walks or maybe you love running or maybe you love doing whatever. But you're more than just the profession and I think our society has caused us to just label ourselves as the profession and it's like that could be. That's very poor for people mentally, in the mental framework of like what it is.

Speaker 2:

From what I've seen, it is because if they lose their job, they feel like they've lost their identity, which is totally not correct. And you know, even if their identity is challenged, if somebody says to you, jordan, I think you could be an artist, and you're like I've never thought of myself as an artist. I have a. I have a cousin who who, like he, was in marketing and sales all his life, his wife made him sit down and do some drawing because it relaxed him. Yeah, he became this unbelievable artist like pencil drawings, so detailed, they look like photographs and he just he just started doing this he would never have known right, and so it's like, yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1:

So what are you doing that you don't know about?

Speaker 2:

Right. So, audience, if you think of yourself as a marketing rep and you've never, you know, drawn and suddenly you pick up a pencil and you're loving drawing and you're losing yourself in the drawing, like you disappear into the act of drawing, that's like an enlightened moment. Disappearing into the act of drawing. That's an awesome thing. That's just like. You know, your listeners, they're already disappearing into the act of hunting or fishing or playing golf. They stop thinking about a self and they swing the club and they have a great swing. If they're thinking about themselves, they really have a lousy swing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, right, so there's so much potential for us as human beings to move beyond the ego and to embrace the connection with what we call the all of it or the divine. Yeah, that that's where that best happiness is, because when you start to understand what you are, it's like, okay, the Kvetchy little voice that says it can't do anything is really going to be overcome by the right brain and its connection to the divine. And you really want that, kvetchy? I don't know if your listeners know Kvetch means complain, and you really want that, kvetchy. I don't know if your listeners know Kvetch means complain. The Kvetchy little voice is like an enemy to you, really Absolutely. So. The spiritual path is really to become an integrated human being, able to deal with humanity, with your thoughts, feelings and sensations, but also able to know the immensity of your being, since it's connected to the whole universe, and to be able to feel that connection, those things together. That to me is happiness.

Speaker 1:

I love it. I love it. And John, because we only have a few more minutes, tell us a little bit about what's going on with your book.

Speaker 2:

Well, I've written a book called being Human and Waking Up and it's available on Amazon and on Kindle, but I want to give it to any listener that's made it this far, because I want to match your generosity in giving your time and kindness to your audience. So I'm going to give them a free copy of the book. It's a PDF form and all they have to do is write to me Very simple, the word support at simplyawakecom, so S-U-P-P-O-R-T, the at sign S-I-M, as in Mary, p-l-y-a-w-a-k-ecom, and just say book, and I will send you a book. I will also send you a link for a free 15-minute consult if you would like.

Speaker 2:

One audience, and the book is really an instruction manual on all the simplest techniques I've found to first inhabit your humanity and be a successful human. Learn how to deal with your thoughts and your feelings and your sensations, so that you can also open up to your right brain connection, to divinity, to the universe, to all that is, and be your whole, unique self. That's what the world is waiting for and that's what you're waiting for. It's all there, right away, and the book is a very simple guide. It's not intellectual, it's all there, right away and the book is a very simple guide. It's not intellectual, it's not, you know, academic. It's just here's how you do it.

Speaker 1:

I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Sean. This has been absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2:

It's been a pleasure, jordan, I've really enjoyed it. And folks, again, let me remind you, please give this guy some five-star reviews and some likes and loves, because this is he's giving this away for free, you know absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate that sure.

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Jordan Edwards

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