Sneaky Powerful - A Podcast Dedicated to Somatic Experiencing®

15 - Somatic Experiencing®, Humanness, and Free Will with Dr. Joshua Sylvae

• Ali Capurro • Episode 15

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In this episode, Joshua and I discuss a wide-range of topics from trauma healing to free will. I enjoyed exploring the playful and profound edges of somatic work and the concept of choice. In this episode, I especially enjoyed the warmth and insight Joshua brought into a thoughtful dialogue. 

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SPEAKER_02:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Sneaky Powerful Podcast. My name is Ali Capurro and I'm so glad you're here. It's been so long since I've published a podcast and this particular one was actually recorded quite a while ago. To be able to publish more podcasts, hopefully, I made a choice to skip the editing process. So this is Sneaky Powerful Raw. No intro music, unless I figure that out later, or polished content, just meaningful conversations. So today I'm really excited to share the conversation with Dr. Joshua Silve. Joshua is someone who makes me feel more hopeful about the world. He's a faculty member with SEI, and he has a book coming out in November. Joshua is also a creative, deeply thoughtful human who's using his intellect and light to support trauma healing in ways that reach far and wide. I'm really happy to share this conversation and staying true to the raw nature of this episode, we jump right in with laughter, my favorite. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00:

That's great.

SPEAKER_02:

It is great. But yeah, so we were going to talk about free will a little bit. So I had kind of told myself that I would do a little more research on free will because I thought, do I not know? What do I know about free will? But as free will would have it, I didn't do or not. I don't know. I didn't do any research. So I'm like, well, what do you think about free will?

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right. You didn't do any research. And what does that say about you? Why weren't you able to muster more discipline to complete this task that you had set out for yourself?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And, you know, do we hold you accountable for that? You know, do we say, you know, this is a moral failing of some kind? Yes. Or do we acknowledge or... Or do we acknowledge that according to the laws of nature, everything arises out of prior causes and conditions. And so to presume that you could have chosen otherwise is perhaps illusory. And I think of all of this as, you know, super interesting and potentially super relevant to this work that we do, but it still is considered by most to be a kind of intellectual sideline. And I'm not surprised to hear you say and to hear others say, I don't really know much about this. It's not exactly something we're encouraged to reflect on or consider. For me, it wasn't until I don't know, maybe 10 years ago or something, all of a sudden I realized that I had just never really considered this thing. Like, do we have conscious voluntary will over our lives? And I was surprised to realize that it had just really never come across the screen of my awareness, you know, that I hadn't considered it. And then, you know, really became fascinated with it, devoured a ton of literature And it has since come to really influence the way that I think about things. But I don't get to talk about it as often as I'd like, you know, because when you're teaching the SE professional training, the somatic experiencing professional training, which is where you and I have first crossed paths, you know, it's... It's potentially not what people are paying to hear about.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

I try to inhibit those impulses I have to sort of explore this with people.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. I am curious. Can we use like a really simplified example of maybe something you've encountered where free will has, where you've noticed it, nothing dramatic, but so for our listeners to kind of get a understanding of what you mean when you're talking about free will without the philosophical textbooks that you've read through.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, for sure. You know, I mean, it's, it's, Everywhere. It's in everything. It touches, you know, really anything that means anything to us, I think, because we're tending to walk around day to day, all day, every day,

SPEAKER_02:

with

SPEAKER_01:

this sense of authorship over our actions.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And I am wondering, even as you say that, there's a little bit of possessiveness, like, absolutely, I author my own life.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. Exactly. There tends to be a little bit of a reaction. for many of us when we really deeply consider the possibility that my choices, so to speak, are in a way, as we were saying in the beginning, choiceless. That what I elect to say and do is arising out of prior causes and conditions and is likely reducible to my genetic inheritance combined with the environments that have shaped the expression of those genetics. So I have this sense of like, and of course, we can't touch on this without considering how many of us might understand ourselves to not be something of the body you know, that there's a, there's an immaterial soul that inhabits, you know, the body. I

SPEAKER_02:

like the idea of separating out. Yeah. Those. Yeah. Yeah. Early on.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. You know, so sometimes, sometimes there's kind of a sense of like, well, sure, you know, there's my genetics and my environment and that does provide some kind of influence, but then there's the real me that's somewhere in there and maybe is made up of spirit matter.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

But the thing that we might say is that even if that's true, even if we are a soul, did we choose our soul? Did we...

SPEAKER_02:

Dang that question. That's a big one. That is shaking me to my core.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought I knew that one. Did we come into the world and somehow there's some stuff that is us that stands apart from these different layers of experience. And we looked and said, well, there's my soul and I don't really like it. And so I'm going to make a different choice. I mean, wherever you look, the notion that there's some me that is somehow standing apart and saying, yay or nay is is a little is a little hard to get behind uh and so you know of course we could talk about all the like neuroscience and philosophy and all that stuff um but that's that's the basic picture and you know i i just really think it's uh it's relevant to any project of of healing you know that that we really start to question how much authorship do we actually have over the choices that we make? I

SPEAKER_02:

don't think this is exactly what you mean. Maybe, maybe it touches on it, but when I, as I have been at least thinking about it, even if I didn't do much research about free will, I was thinking that if I, if I really felt like I had a free will and even though I said I got defensive or angry up in arms about me, I, Not being the author of my own life. There's also an awareness that I would have chose things. I would have done things a lot differently if I had a little more free will. Yes, 100%

SPEAKER_01:

yes. Of course. There's so many times, I think, in this life for many of us that we find ourselves saying or doing things that we had expressly forbidden ourselves to say or do.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Now I'm feeling the relief. I'm actually like, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So what a lot of us tend to want to do is... Yeah, yeah, yeah. And about the things of which we are ashamed, that was something else. That was my conditioning. That was, you know, my mom wasn't nice to me. I

SPEAKER_02:

was like, it's the thing, like when my kid's good. Oh, that's my kid. And then when they're not, they have their own free will. I have nothing to do

SPEAKER_01:

with that. That's the other parent's influence. That's

SPEAKER_02:

right. That's right. That's their dad's side. Right. Actually, in a serious way often, which is funny.

SPEAKER_01:

No, for sure. For sure. I mean, that's part of what can be challenging about children is that they are going to manifest some of the same attributes that drive you nuts about their other donor, so to

SPEAKER_02:

speak. Button pushers. They know how.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_02:

It's also like when you said genetics, oh man, yeah, I was thinking about just ancestors in general and that whole, I know that's a big topic, but there's a little bit of anger thinking about the influence that perhaps my ancestors have on my lack of free will. Like to be real, like a little bit of like, you motherfuckers, like you should have done this generations ago. Why am I doing it now?

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Right, right. I'm going to sit with that more.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Being the inheritor of generations of unprocessed, unworked through intergenerational trauma is part of that inheritance that conditions us. our lives, you know, so the, uh, and, and it could not be otherwise. I don't think, you know, that those are, those are prior causes and conditions that will constrain what's possible for us.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. I

SPEAKER_01:

was talking to my kid last night. Uh, she was, I mentioned, um, that I was watching, I've been watching this documentary. Gosh, hopefully this isn't going to be, um, controversial. I've been watching this documentary about Donald Trump and really curious about his life, his upbringing, kind of what made him who he is. And hopefully without stepping in it, what my daughter said was like, well, he must have had really his parents must have been, you know, not good. Really kind of coming down on the side of like nurture, you know, rather than like, you know, a sort of nature nurture thing. And, you know, hopefully I can say this without being controversial, you know, it's all in, you know, what he says, how he presents himself, you know, that like he is in this to win, and understands winning as the amassing of resources. And so we started to have this really interesting conversation, you know, where I said, well, I guess, kiddo, I can't say, you know, how much of this is owing to, you know, his parentage, you know, because maybe genetics also play a role. And she was like, I just can't believe that. I mean, he once was just a little baby and that little baby, you know, couldn't have just been there, you know, with this kind of, you know, these tendencies, right? But then we started to kind of, you know, unpack it a little bit. Sorry, hopefully this is going to be relevant to our point. Started to unpack it a little bit. And I was like, well, you know, if it's true that there is some genetic aspect to this, you know, maybe that has been playing out, you know, through the generations. And so, you know, there was some... some selection for certain characteristics. And the thing we know about human ancestors is that they were, in our deep time, ancestors hunter-gatherer groups, the archeological and anthropological evidence suggests that they were fiercely egalitarian, which is to say everybody was equal and they were fierce about protecting that state of affairs. So they would expel people if they tried to usurp the autonomy of other people.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And in those environments, obviously, the genetics that would be selected for would be ability to cooperate, respect for other people, putting the needs of the group ahead of your own. Those kind of characteristics would be celebrated by these groups. And those people would be probably winning more partners and sending their DNA down through the generations. if people were exiled when they showed tendencies towards selfish or even sociopathic behavior, then their genetics would have died out as they were off in the woods by themselves, unable to find mates. So, but then I was, I guess it became a little, it's probably hard being my child because everything becomes some, you know, neuroscientific uh you know lesson or whatever but i was like but then let's think about you know the world that we live in today in a capitalist economy what gets selected for i.e what wins you more resources and potentially access to to mates and you know the ability to send your genetics down through the generations is selfishness yeah is uh you know sociopathy And so in that sense, it could be that we're now finding ourselves in an environment that is not shaped towards our basic biology and in which the genetic signature of selfishness is what is getting reinforced and selected for. So In that sense, we're kind of seeing this interesting shift, I think, in our world, where a lot of us are scratching our heads, just being like, what happened? What's going on with the human species? And it could not have to do with people being bad actors who could choose otherwise if they so desired, but actually people According to the dictates of prior causes and conditions like their genetics and like the environments that have, that have shaped their actions.

SPEAKER_02:

It, it brought my, it brought me to a real serious level. Cause it felt like, Oh, that to me speaks to so much of the sadness that I'm maybe, even if I talk, speak anecdotally, like in my practice or in my patients or clients and just this, this, the selfishness that doesn't create happiness maybe creates winning, but not yeah. Happiness. And actually, first of all, your daughter, that's so insightful, even though she has to be your daughter and you're the neuroscience and I'm sure it's not terribly hard, but yeah, that's so cool that she picks up on that and has awareness of that. I love hearing that. But it reminds me of in 2016, I don't know if you'll remember this, but when Peter spoke, Peter Levine spoke in Portland. I remember it was the first time I met you. I didn't really meet you, but the first time I talked to you, because he was doing like a little, maybe a two-day workshop at the Hilton, something downtown in Portland.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, for Pussy or something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it must have been. I honestly can't remember. But... And it was election year, and he had photos of Donald Trump and sort of was, without being too controversial, going into... I remember specifically him talking about the way his mouth, how he held his mouth and this sort of attachment reaching. Do you remember that at all?

SPEAKER_01:

Vaguely.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but I just remember being fascinated. Well, because he can read body language or... I don't know if read's the right word, but yeah. Anyway, it's really an interesting thing to think about. And I like thinking about him as a little infant or a little baby because that brings so much compassion to my heart.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

No matter what is happening politically. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Isn't it nice to be able to access that, that sense of compassion? And for whatever it's worth, if I'm still allowed to bring this back around to free will, one of the things that I love about about integrating this understanding is that it does allow me to have a lot more compassion

SPEAKER_02:

because

SPEAKER_01:

I'm no longer moving through the world, judging people and saying that person is just a bad person who they must want to do this. Like when they cut me off on the freeway, they must want, They must have been in the lane and said to themselves, I could just stay in this lane and not almost kill that other driver and his children.

SPEAKER_00:

But

SPEAKER_01:

I just want to get over, and I don't care. I don't care. They can suffer. And did all of that as this deliberative action that they were utterly and completely in control over. That kind of stuff makes me mad. And I get real, real mad when things like that happen. Again, compassion for the kiddos. They have to hear me cursing and whatever, having some big reaction to whatever. But if I can remember that that individual no more chose... to do that thing, then I chose to yell some expletive at them that they're never gonna hear. And we're all moving through this world, acting according to things that we didn't choose. And so I can start to let go of that sense of like, oh, this is a bad person. And they're, they're essentially like me, but they're just choosing to do bad stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

They're not like me. You know, they have not enjoyed the luck that I have enjoyed to arrive at this moment in my life with the, with this amount of free attention and interest in certain kinds of, you know, ethical behaviors. You know, it's like, like I was thinking, um, As I was driving around today thinking about, I wonder what we're gonna talk about, I was reflecting on this. I, as a person, have moved through this world sitting with spiritual teachers, sitting with therapy teachers. I've been to all kinds of workshops and retreats and all this. And some number of those teachers, when I would get close enough to them, I would realize like, ooh, this person is a little, hmm. you know, like there's a little bit of like, you know, some kind of malignant narcissism going on here and I would get burned and, and be really resentful. And, and now I'm a teacher and I realized like, I've been moving through the world kind of with this, like, like I'm not like them, you know, this like sense of superiority that I'm like, yeah, I'm not making those choices. Like I'm not, you know, exploiting people and seeing people as pawns on a chessboard to aggrandize myself or create more resources for me. And I've been really kind of getting off on that. And all of a sudden, the whole house of cards just came down. And I was like, I'm just lucky. I'm just lucky for whatever reason. I did not come into the world with the genetics or environmental cues that created in me that particular set of ethical predispositions. I have the ones that I have and I'm incredibly grateful because I think that I'm probably at the end of the day, living a better life, feeling freer inside myself, like sleeping, you know, whatever, sleeping better, however, you know, whatever metaphor we want to use. And, and I'm really glad about that, but I should not, I should not sit there thinking that like, there's something superior about me. Like, this is just, you know, this is just dumb, dumb luck in a sense that I didn't choose and I didn't earn. I didn't earn it. You know, it's just what happened. So anyways, I do think it's useful to be able to hold some of these perspectives because it softens us, I think, in a way that's probably really important.

SPEAKER_02:

I... I value that a lot. It's taken me back to when I think I was a senior in high school and I was in psychology, a psychology class, and we were talking about serial killers. And I had, this is how I wrangled in my very first serious boyfriend. I

SPEAKER_00:

love this story already.

SPEAKER_02:

It's totally true, which is so funny. But anyway, so we were talking about specifically Jeffrey Dahmer and the class was, and I think I raised my hand and said something like, kind of understanding the, I don't know, thin line between me and Jeffrey Dahmer, which was probably frightening to many of my class, my peers, but there was one guy who got it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. That's

SPEAKER_02:

right. Exactly. He's like, that's my girl. But yeah, basically like, haven't you ever felt crazy before was what I said, my 17 year old self said, and that was prior to me having panic attacks and really going on this journey of understanding, I don't, not mental health, mental unhealth, but I've been watching not a documentary, but a made up, a fictional show, but called, I think it's Mindhunters, but it's about like the beginning of the FBI. I think the serial killer sort of unit of the FBI, I think, hopefully I'm saying that correctly.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Can you hear the dirt bikes in the background? I think, okay, good.

SPEAKER_01:

I heard something. I wasn't sure.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm really holding compassion that they are not choosing to do

SPEAKER_01:

that, right? That's right. Their attraction to that is not something that they selected.

SPEAKER_02:

No, it's genetic. Anyway, so, but yeah, thinking about and watching these films, fake interviews, but I'm assuming they're based on some sort of reality or hopefully, I don't know, maybe I'll research it more. Probably not. Where they are talking about, but I guess where I'm trying to go with this is just the idea like, I don't think they would have chosen that if they could have, is my feeling and my guess. And What an awful life and it's hard, but to muster some compassion toward that scenario. But that is a way bigger can of worms. That's what I'm talking about. Well,

SPEAKER_01:

for sure. I mean, but we can even look there, like your ability to hold compassion for that situation. is itself choiceless.

UNKNOWN:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Like there's other people in this world, maybe the family members of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims who will never be able to, for a moment, feel compassion for him.

SPEAKER_02:

Even someone I might be watching the show with might have an absolutely different experience. And you're right. It does not feel like a choice. I don't know why I'm made this way, but I have been since I was very little. And I remember that specifically.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think a capacity for empathy might be one of those things that is shaped by genetic factors and then whether our environment prepares us for that. Like if we're not shown empathy, we may have a deficiency in our capacity to empathize with others.

UNKNOWN:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty fascinating, which is why I love my work, my line of work. Okay. So I know I'm being careful of time and we have about 12 minutes and I want to make sure. So I want to make sure to

SPEAKER_01:

kind of just, just, you know, I have till 515. So are

SPEAKER_02:

you sure? Yeah. Okay. I like my me questioning your life. Are you sure?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, no positive.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Okay, cool. Okay, good. Cause I think this one might be a little bit longer and I'm sure free will will come into it. I'm not sure how though. Actually, let me first say, so sometimes this happens where something will come into the field. Like, so, so, you know, you knew you had this interview and I'll start to like, like, like I dreamt about our interview or our interaction last night. And I, I, dreamt that we were talking about the Feldenkrais method. So I'm like, Oh, should I bring that up? I don't know, but I'm just going to hold that over here. Cause that was my dream. But what I really want to talk about is I want to have this really, I feel lucky to have this moment to engage in this, what I emailed you about a couple, a year, maybe a year ago. about this spiritual experience. I was lucky enough to participate in a demo and you were the practicer, the faculty therapist. And I'm comfortable talking about this part of it for sure. And it was a very impactful demo session. And there was a point toward the end where I looked at you, but I It was so surreal, psychedelic almost, where I could see, first of all, I felt really safe. And I want to kind of emphasize that. I felt really physically safe, emotionally safe in the setting we were in, being there. It was just a really safe experience. And I looked at you and it was like I'm trying to describe something like Psychedelic is really difficult, as I'm sure you know. But it was as if through your eyes, I could see you for sure. It wasn't like you went away. But it was also as if I could see, maybe it was more in my mental channel, but a kaleidoscope of, so it was like a tunnel of, like, honestly, it was like lifetimes in universes.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And the only reason I know that is because of the way that trying to put myself back there a little bit. But I guess what I want to really ask about is just the spiritual piece of this trauma healing, healing in general. You can throw free will in there. But it was for sure a spiritual moment. of connected to healing trauma. And I, and I think is that you might have Intel, but I think that's what Peter Levine's new book is going to cover. Maybe spirituality and trauma.

SPEAKER_01:

Is it, do you mean the memoir or something else? I

SPEAKER_02:

think the memoir that's out and I think it's April. I think I saw you can pre-order it.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Yeah. Not that we have to

SPEAKER_02:

talk about that at all, but. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I don't have Intel. I haven't, uh, I haven't read it. Um, and I think it's the story of his life and he, uh, you know, he's had some experiences that I think he's going to be sharing about, you know, in that book that are, uh, that involve altered states of consciousness, like the one that you're describing here.

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

it's funny how we have those experiences and we apply this term psychedelic to them.

SPEAKER_02:

And

SPEAKER_01:

that might confuse people because they're going to be thinking, oh, psychedelic substances.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01:

But experiences of what we might call expanded states of consciousness or non-normative states of consciousness, those are available to us in lots of different contexts. People on meditation retreat will have things like this begin to unfold. People experiencing hypnosis will start to have their perceptual faculties shifted. all kinds of different contexts where folks will have experiences that kind of open them up in different ways. And what you're describing sounds like one of those where somehow in that moment, your system was able to access another layer, if you will, an awareness that were maybe not normally able to access. Because imagine if you had access to that all the time, if every moment of every day you were walking around, seeing the tunnel, feeling the lifetimes. It would be very distracting. How are you going to get by?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Take care of the kids and hate the dirt bike guys.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. Yeah, no. It would be like the mundane would be, I would not do it. It would be like brush my teeth. No, why? Look at this.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. That's right. So, you know, I do think that the universe has in a way conspired to open those doorways to us only at times. And, you know, it's a little bit unpredictable what provokes those doors. those openings. I mean, with the psychedelic drugs, it's not, you know, because now, you know, since those, those medicines got synthesized, you know, in the, you know, in the last decade, you know, now, you know, you can just put some, you know, molecule in your body and you're going to have, you know, recourse to, to that more expansive awareness. But other people, you know, will describe this interesting thing where, Some folks might meditate for decades and never have one of those experiences. Some people sit down on the cushion and a couple hours later have one of those experiences. And again, yeah, you were saying this might touch on it. Again, this might be a reflection of genes and environment, that some people come into the world with a psyche that is more prepared to access expanded states. Or in the family that I grew up in, it was encouraged to look up at the clouds and dream and that the people were open to when I would start to spontaneously talk about God or something. And other families, you know, maybe not so much. Maybe that wouldn't be reinforced. And so I would end up, you know, with more or less of a sense of access to that. So, you know, for you, that was there then. I'm imagining that you've probably had some other kinds of

SPEAKER_00:

experiences like that in your life.

SPEAKER_02:

Sorry for sort of an abrupt end, but I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Dr. Joshua Silvey. And thanks for listening to today's episode of Sneaky Powerful.