Thought Leader

The second Ask Me Anything episode.

"The answers we come to are tied to the questions we dare ask."

We cover some really great philosophical questions like: 

1. If you had the entire world’s undivided attention for 30 seconds… what would you say?
2. How would you define progress Objectively for the whole Human Race?
3. If you could have any one superpower, which would you pick and why?
4. How much can we rely on our intuition in trying to make sense of all the argument and disagreement on everything in the world right now?

We discuss Redeemers & Scapegoats, Evolution of the Human Species, Consciousness, Mind Viruses and Cultural Operating Systems and the inferiority of canned food!

There is a quick-fire round of fun questions at the end of the episode.

If you would like to ask any follow up questions, send feedback or submit questions for a future episode, we will be adding in weekly questions from folks who write in [email protected]

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We often get confused about when to Be, when to try and Become.  When to choose, when to Surrender.  When to apply equanimity, when to apply defiance.  Both which take a different kind of courage.

The courage to let go, the preparedness to sometimes be small, and not have the answers, to not be up to task, to allow ourselves to be undone is the source of real power and real becoming!  The place of power and purpose we want to come to, the inheritance of stillness which we call enlightenment or nirvana, is not about how much wisdom we can accrue, how much we can build ourselves up.  It is about a radical undoing; a deep surrender to what is, and a brave loving acceptance of what we are.

And conversely Strength is not a measure of power or some innate resource who only some have a deep well of within the fortress of their hearts - It is simply a decision, the spirit of defiance which says I will try again!

If you would like a piece covered in a reflections episode, email: [email protected]

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It is becoming impossibly difficult  to stay informed about what is happening in the world. and determining whether to pay more or less attention to everything that is screaming for our attention at the present moment.

This episode covers Wokeness, Social justice, Cancel culture and Identity politics.  

We also discuss the idea of actualisation, equality of opportunity, our basic needs and our appetites for justice.

Of course, we cannot really have a discussion like this without looking at the phenomenon of social media, sensationalism in journalism, and echo chambers and specifically the effects these things have on us as individuals and a society and our public discourse

We also work through the phenomenology of conspiracy theory thinking.

Where do we get 
if we silence every voice 
except the ones that echo the current roar?  

How do we do that 
and not end up 
taking the very same missteps 
that those 
who brought us this way, 
to this bad place, 
made, as we try 
to walk our way out of here, 
to a better place.

Questions or feedback: [email protected]

Support the show

Sign up to my Substack: eyeswideopenlife.substack.com
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The working title of this Episode was: The Unruly Committee of Many Unheard Selves 

This episode is about how we end up locked in behaviours, or recursive thinking, which make us generally unhappy, locked in repeating patterns, in our habits, our relationships, specifically patterns which result in regret. 

This pattern manifests internally as an unruly committee of inner voices all trying to speak and be heard at once, the wounded inner child gets drowned out, our shadow is shamed and silenced and the voices off the inner critic and the inner victim are usually the loudest.

Typical symptoms of this might look like:

• repeating  patterns of behaviour we know aren't great for us
• feeling shame when reflecting on our own choices or getting defensive when we get feedback from others
• regularly forgetting decisions we have made to address our behaviours or to make different choices
• struggling to identify and clearly articulate what we need
• Difficulty understanding our own behaviours sometimes
• Frequently experiencing frustration / tension in our close relationships 

To explore this, we borrow from Psychology, Behavioural science, and Philosophy, and a we pull it all together with a bit of Eyes Wide Open Life pragmatism.

And then towards the end, we discuss a practical tool I share with people, which anyone can use to slow down, hold space, and allow all the inner aspects, shadow and otherwise to be heard and be integrated, in a practice called One Voice at a Time.

the "i", 
the Self we work so hard to Liberate, 
is itself the Jailor, 
with a phobia of keys.

the doors 
to our most foundational freedoms 
we discover 
are always 
locked from within.

[email protected]

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Sign up to my Substack: eyeswideopenlife.substack.com
email [email protected]

In this Reflections episode we cover a handful of related pieces on 

• Justice and Injustice, 
• Fairness and Indifference, 
• Passing Judgement; and most importantly 
• Redemption.

We explore what the concepts of Justice and Injustice mean to us at a deep psychological level, as individuals, in our social groups and in our societies, what defines injury and culpability and what a path of redemption back from our falls from grace might look like.

justice is blind
because she can look
into a past
only barely illuminated
by the embers of understanding
from a half remembered time,
which still glow
between the ashes
of primitive hearths
and once strident beacons.

and she can look only
upon a full unfolding present,
by the torch light of the mob
which cast long lancing shadows
of pitchforks
upon her scroll of deeds.

but cast her veiled eyes
into the future not at all,
for it is dark
and none yet dwell there.

email [email protected]

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In the end, so much of our lives, are our Relationships.

So many of us want our relationships to complete us. We outsource the validation and acceptance we need to others. We want to have the full sacred connection to another special person who will never break our hearts and will never trigger our pain, never scratch our wounds. We want them to be emotionally available, open hearted, and share our dreams;

That other person cannot exist, and you are not that person for someone else either.

In this episode we  cover the reasons, why, Relationships fail, and what is at bottom, always a failure to properly set and manage expectations.

We discuss ideas such as 

• Ideal Self,
• The Phases of a Relationship,
• the Neurochemistry of Romance, and
• Our Needs and Our Values.

We also cover the upcoming The Relationship Formula™  course being run in collaboration with Nic Gregoriades of liberationmentor.com.

We get the relationships that mirror our expectations, but we keep the relationships that mirror the work we have done on ourselves.

[email protected]

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Sign up to my Substack: eyeswideopenlife.substack.com
email [email protected]

A reflection on Defeat and the value of not just seeking the Invincible Summer within that Albert Camus wrote of, but equally the profound understanding of the winters we need to face within ourselves and the stillness we need to come to ground in, in our own journeys of healing and growth.  Our grief, we learn, is the greatest teacher, on Love.

The piece I cover is called Defeat by Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American Poet, who was responsible for the great work The Prophet.

Reflections episodes, are an invitation to stop for a moment, to allow ourselves to become still, and to hear, with an open heart, a message or an idea, that can open small windows in our minds, or hold mirrors to the windows we were looking for the courage and stillness, to open within ourselves.

  what do you wish to say
  to the World
  which might set wings
  to the fallen angels
  of our abandoned
  but once noble ideas.

This is the second of many in a series called Reflections, in which we will cover pieces of my own work or pieces I have come across that I find deeply inspiring and have enriched my thinking and my life in some profound way.

These are intended to fill the cultural space that homilies and philosophical and or spiritual contemplations used to.

Eyes Wide Open Life Podcast
email: [email protected]

Support the show

Sign up to my Substack: eyeswideopenlife.substack.com
email [email protected]

In this episode I discuss Actualization, unpacking what I mean by this, and the Power of Permission, which we need to give ourselves, to pursue our intents, to take mastery of our life and our choices, to enter courageously into a conversation with the Universe and with the reality of our lives, where it becomes okay to 'fail', so that we can learn, grow and develop.

Indirectly I also discuss in some detail what the entire project of the Eyes Wide Open Life podcast is about, what my motivations and intentions are, and what my main thesis in all of my work is, which is found throughout the RocketSprocket Art Project on Instagram and the Courses and Coaching I deliver via Eyes Wide Open Life.
 
I also cover:

• feedback loops
• self-measurement and reflection
• radical honestly and vulnerability
• peerlessness
• the false attraction and pursuit of wisdom vs the more authentic project of actualization and discovery of self

If you take nothing else away from this episode, this is the part i hope truly lands:

I believe, and in many ways i am living proof, that the pursuit and attainment and the successful negotiation of all the obstacles that stand in the way of self mastery and self liberation, is at bottom, psychological.  

That is, our pursuit or failure to achieve connection, is as a result of the ideas we carry, ideas we have been infected with through conditioning, the ideas we have failed to challenge and correct in ourselves.  

Ideas about love, acceptance, forgiveness, worthiness, power, belonging, divinity, consciousness, these are the ideas we need to get straight, and redundant impediments like shame, guilt and the confusion between Fear and Danger, between Pain and Injury, between Discomfort an unbearability, that discernment, is KEY.

Support the show

Sign up to my Substack: eyeswideopenlife.substack.com
email [email protected]

A reflection on the nature and merits of reflection and quiet contemplation itself.

The piece I cover is called of Museums & Memes from my collection The Ratchet & The Pendulum.

Reflections episodes, are an invitation to stop for a moment, to allow ourselves to become still, and to hear, with an open heart, a message or an idea, that can open small windows in our minds, or hold mirrors to the windows we were looking for the courage and stillness, to open within ourselves.

  what do you wish to say
  to the World
  which might set wings
  to the fallen angels
  of our abandoned
  but once noble ideas.

This is the first of many in a series called Reflections, in which we will cover pieces of my own work or pieces I have come across that I find deeply inspiring and have enriched my thinking and my life in some profound way.

These are intended to fill the cultural space that homilies and philosophical and or spiritual contemplations used to.

Eyes Wide Open Life Podcast
email: [email protected]

Support the show

Sign up to my Substack: eyeswideopenlife.substack.com
email [email protected]