InsideOut Podcast with Seka Dobric

Daniel Andersson used to run an experiment on himself. He would open the first beer of the afternoon, count to fifteen, and the anxiety would be gone. "Like magic," he says. "I couldn't feel any anxiety whatsoever."

That is why it took him so long to stop. It worked.

His last drink was the final day of November 2018. He was living in Tokyo — a manager, a father of two, a man everyone thought was doing well. His daughter had started asking why he smelled strange. Nobody ever said, "Daniel, you have a problem."

In this conversation he tells the whole story: a Swedish village where every boy played football and every Friday was about drinking. A father he adored and could never resemble. One free year in Florence at 21, and the emails from that year his mother showed him decades later, in which he barely recognised how happy he had been.

Then 2019 — twenty-five kilos gone, two years of near-solitude, and one desperate afternoon when he locked the bathroom door, prayed a prayer he had not said since childhood, and felt a hand on the back of his neck.

He talks about the woman who gave him back his sense of being a man, at forty, after years without so much as a hug. About his daughter asking at dinner to move to Sweden. About meeting Hannah at a comedy club and being asked, on their first date, how he receives love — and having no answer.

And about what sat underneath all of it: he was afraid of men. Today fifty of them meet him every Sunday in Malmö at Lighthouse, the community he founded. Nothing leaves the room. Nobody gives advice.

WHERE TO FIND DANIEL
Website — danielbertandersson.com
Instagram — instagram.com/dbavibrationer
TikTok — tiktok.com/@daniel.bert.ander
LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/danielbertandersson


CHAPTERS
00:00 The experiment
00:14 Welcome to the show
00:40 The question before the story
01:27 The last drink, November 2018
03:06 What alcohol actually did
04:25 A village where Friday was liberation
07:20 Florence at 21
08:36 Wanting his father's approval
10:10 What his father never said
12:59 Tokyo: career, title, identity
15:39 The more he did, the less happy
18:00 Waiting for five o'clock
19:01 Nobody said the word
20:35 Why he walked onto a comedy stage
22:03 Sobriety as a promise on stage
24:03 Twenty-five kilos, and two years alone
24:51 The woman who gave him his value back
25:27 "I want to go to Sweden"
28:54 The prayer, and the hand on his neck
36:15 Meeting Hannah
38:34 "How do you receive love?"
39:17 The fear of men
41:50 Emergence Brotherhood
43:20 Money, title, and what he chose instead
44:51 More of a man, or less?
45:16 The retreat that took the fear away
47:29 Lighthouse: fifty men in Malmö
52:14 The rules of the room
54:39 What he still doesn't talk about
57:23 A Kundalini awakening in Spain
1:02:30 Plant medicine, supervised
1:08:11 A message to the next generation
1:13:00 Where to find Daniel
1:13:29 The book: Love Longer
1:14:58 For whoever finds this in a hard hour

Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xAVwYXMqrns

InsideOut Podcast with Seka — stories that change how we see ourselves.
youtube.com/@insideoutwithseka

What if the most powerful thing available to you has been with you your whole life?

Niraj Naik trained as a pharmacist. Then his own health collapsed — a severe autoimmune condition, followed by years of depression — and the shelves he worked behind had nothing that reached it. What he turned to instead were old breathing practices, and what came out of that became SOMA Breath.

In this conversation he explains what he believes breathing does to a body and a mind: the physiology of breath retention, why rhythm and music change the experience, the altered states people report, and the question he is asked more than any other — whether breathwork can take someone where psychedelics go.

We also talk about where he thinks all this is heading: breath as an ordinary daily practice rather than a wellness trend, and what that might mean for how people handle pressure.

IN THIS EPISODE
- What breath retention does in the body
- Whether breathwork reaches where psychedelics do
- Rhythm, music, and the meditative state
- Altered states, and how he describes them
- Breath and the stress response
- Where he thinks the practice is going

WHERE TO FIND NIRAJ
Website — somabreath.com
Instagram — @nirajnaikofficial
Email — [email protected]

This conversation is not medical advice. Niraj describes his own experience and his own work. If you are managing a health condition, speak to a qualified professional first.

The SOMA Breath link shared on our channel is an affiliate link. If you use it, we may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XYLgd1_bCcY

InsideOut Podcast with Seka — stories that change how we see ourselves.
youtube.com/@insideoutwithseka

Episode Description

Every night you go somewhere. Most people arrive, stay for hours, and remember almost nothing.

Henrik Holmer researches and writes about lucid dreaming — the state in which someone becomes aware, inside a dream, that they are dreaming. Once that happens the dream can be looked at rather than simply endured, and that turns out to change quite a lot.

In this conversation he explains what is actually understood about it and what still isn't. What the brain is doing during REM sleep. Why reality checks and a dream journal are where almost everyone starts. Whether anyone can learn it, or whether some people never will.

He is at his most interesting on nightmares. His argument is that a recurring nightmare is not an enemy but a message being re-sent, and that becoming lucid inside one changes what you are able to do with it.

And then the questions with no settled answer — what dreams might be showing about the parts of a mind that stay quiet in daylight, and whether awareness continues while the body sleeps.

IN THIS EPISODE
- What lucid dreaming actually is
- Becoming conscious inside a dream
- Reality checks and dream journals — where beginners start
- What is known about the neuroscience, and what isn't
- Nightmares as material rather than as enemies
- Dream symbolism and the patterns underneath it
- Can dreams predict the future?
- Why mindfulness seems to help
- Whether everyone can learn it

WHERE TO FIND HENRIK
Website — luciddreamingforeveryone.com
Email — [email protected]

This conversation explores ideas and personal experience, not treatment. If you are dealing with persistent nightmares, disturbed sleep or distress, speak to a qualified professional.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GDt14CNJhk8

InsideOut Podcast with Seka — stories that change how we see ourselves.
youtube.com/@insideoutwithseka