Voices in the Dark

After a successful Go Fund Me campaign, Jon raised enough money to spend an intensive weekend retreat with coach, speaker, author and emotional terrorist Philip McKernan. And he's still reeling from what happened.

So what happened, and how's Jon doing today?

It was an intimate event at a hotel in a tiny village. They spent most of it locked in a room with a man whose speciality is relentlessly asking some of the most deep and searching questions about yourself, your life, and your relationships with people, money, and even to your own identity.

It's what Jon's calling McKernan's Emotional Cheese-grater. There were tears, but there was also laughter, insight, and a renewed sense of purpose.

Jon opens up in this super raw episode about some of his deepest insecurities; how he discovered what's been holding him back from publishing the book he's been working on for 10 years; and he shares some of McKernan's most powerful, potentially life-changing questions.

We get into some of the most common emotional blockages we all face: trying to solve emotional problems with intellectual solutions; wasting time trying to get people to like and see you, instead of choosing to spend time with the people who already 'get' you; and how the source of the trouble we experience in one area of our lives often lies in a different, totally unexpected place.

This is an episode about making change: recognising what's wrong and consciously deciding to take action. How can you get your friends or partner to support you to make that change? What's the difference between needing something and simply being open to it? And how can we make any of this change without being judgemental and beating ourselves up in the process?

This one's personal. We hope it helps you reflect on where you're at in your own journey, too. Get in touch to let us know what came up for you, too – questions and reflections are always welcome!

Some of Philip's most powerful questions to ask yourself:

• Where in my life am I settling?
• What am I tired of?
• Am I using my gift or my talent?
• What mask am I still wearing, and how would I describe it?
• What conversation am I avoiding?
• What part of me can the world not see?

Find Out More:

• Check out our exclusive video interview with Philip!
• The classic 'It's Not About The Nail' video – check it out!

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

This week: when and how to give advice; how people avoid seeing what's right in front of them; how to avoid getting overwhelmed in life; and what human connection and life are truly all about.

Riffing on Letter 29 from Seneca, this episode is a corker. Advice is a dangerous game: when and how you give it can change your life.

Don't waste energy and time trying to give advice to those who don't want to hear it. Not only would Seneca be pissed off at you, you'd be violating the most important of the 48 Laws of Power: Always Say Less Than Necessary.

'One must not talk to a man unless he is willing to listen'

– Seneca

There's also a deep arrogance in thinking 'if only they knew what I knew, they'd choose what I would'. Is that how you feel when someone else sticks their oar in?

Still, keeping an open mind is one of the truest paths to wisdom. So how can we take on advice from other people without getting agitated, angry, or beginning to doubt ourselves? Dre's got a theory: Treat your mind like you're the general of an army – there's competing voices offering you counsel, but you make the decisions. You're not surrendering your mind or self to someone if you're willing to hear and perhaps choose to follow their advice, after considering all the options.

We give you some powerful tricks to decode your own emotions – why are you reacting the way you're reacting? And how can you master the moment before you react and give yourself time to respond instead?

Beyond the back-and-forth of opinions, though, what about real connection? We take a tangent from Seneca's Letter and dive into something we feel lies at the heart of human existence. Call it vibe, call it harmonisation, call it just plain getting each other. It's that feeling of deep connection and mutual recognition with other people, and it's what truly makes us human.

With that connection as our guiding light, advice becomes a whole different game. What if we try not to give out advice, but draw the people we truly value along with us – showing an example, offering an open hand, giving them strength to fail and learn for themselves?

Plus, Dre insists that THERE IS NO TRUTH and tells us he's planning to make Jon write a new Bible...

Also Including:

• The power of asking for help
• The difference between 'Help me' and 'Save me'
• Beginning working relationships with true personal connections
• Moralising statements are a method of control
• Not casting your pearls before swine
• Doing your best and what that really means

Find Out More:

• Hit us up on our brand new Instagram!
• The full text for free on WikiSource
• Check out the beautiful Human & Alien shirts and caps from Jamie C Johnstone!
• Check out Dre's appearance on the excellent 'Adulting with Ebonie' podcast
• Don Miguel Ruíz's book, The Four Agreements – highly recommended

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

Can psychedelics cure Autism? It's a question researchers are only beginning to ask, but VITD's own Dre has already run the experiments – on himself.

Over the past few years, he's taken MDMA and LSD to help connect the parts of his brain that allow most people to understand others, feel their emotions, and make lasting connections.

But before we get to that, what even is Autism Spectrum Disorder? Probably not what you think it is. Most people on the Autism spectrum aren't Rain Man or maths geniuses. They're people whose brains function differently, but in myriad different ways. It's called a spectrum for a reason, and that spectrum involves dozens of symptoms (each highly variable) which are then bundled together under the 'Autism' label.

Dre shares his personal journey from alienation to deep human connection, beginning at a point in his life where jobs and relationships just weren't working out. He stopped, took stock, and asked himself the question that most of us are too scared to ask: Am I the problem?

For me, Autism was being a featureless white room, without windows or doors. MDMA opened a door in that room. Suddenly I could see outside to where "real people" lived. LSD allowed me to leave that room.

These experiences were revelatory: until MDMA, he'd never felt music before. Until LSD, he'd never felt a true sense of peace in himself.

Using his biomedical background, Dre explains how these substances can do such incredible things, what they meant for his own development, and why it's essential that more research is done to help people with Autism.

But do people with Autism even want to be 'cured'? And is 'cured' the right word to use?

For many people, there's immediate resistance: Autism is a part of their identity and sense of self. And Autism is simply a different way of thinking, not some kind of disease.

For Dre, he wanted to change – he wanted to understand other people and to be able to grow as a person and pursue his dreams in a world that simply isn't set up to accommodate or understand Autistic people. With such potent psychedelic tools available to make that change, at the very least, more Autistic people should be made aware of the possibility of change, if they want to experience it for themselves.

Ask Dre Anything!

We're planning an AMA with Dre on Autism and psychedelics, so line up your questions here! Drop us a line via our Facebook Page, on Instagram, or use the chat window on this site :)

Also Including:

• How psychedelics affect the brain
• How MDMA works – biologically and psychologically
• How Autistic are you?
• Einstein's brain
• Taking MDMA to understand others

Find Out More:

• Autism and MDMA – research and information from MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies
• The Autism Wheel

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

Does travel broaden the mind, or are you simply running away from your problems? Can self-discovery happen on the road, or is it always a case of 'wherever you go, there you are'?

This episode draws on Letter 28 ('On travel as a cure for discontent'), in which Seneca takes Lucilius to task for jumping around from place to place, trying to find solace and centredness. According to Seneca, he needs a 'change of soul, rather than a change of climate'.

But we're not so sure. Putting yourself in new situations not only reveals different parts of you to yourself, but it also helps us to escape the habits and people who confine us.

The real question here is what's going on in your head. Are you running away, or are you going Walkabout – the more spiritual journey in which you head out in search of what truly matters to you.

Still, what about the other side of the coin – If you're always looking for yourself, you're only ever going to find someone who's looking for themselves! Jon's met a lot of Retreat Junkies, who never take what they learn from their explorations and actually apply it to their lives. If you just keep asking questions but never listening to the answers, what's the point of it all?

All of this can be hard work, but does that make it worthwhile? Have we got too accustomed in our culture to thinking that everything has to be hard to be worthwhile?

We also share some personal tales of travel and self-discovery, and feel rather perplexed that, despite everything we've heard, it turns out no one actually understands what gravity is. Seriously.

Also Including:

• Getting fossilised in the place you live
• Going Walkabout in the modern world
• Retreat junkies and how not to become one
• What's more important – why, what, or how you're doing something?
• Lies we tell to children

Find Out More:

• Hit us up on our brand new Instagram!
• The full text for free on WikiSource
• The hilarious Gap Yah video
• More wisdom from the incredible Philip McKernan
• The real treasure is friendship cartoon we mention

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

Welcome to our new series on Sex & Relationships! VITD has long been about psychology, mental health, social dynamics and self-development, and these are all vital themes in the realms of sexuality and interpersonal connection.

But usually most of us just don't talk about them. They're vital parts of the human experience, yet we tend to just follow the script that our culture's given us, rarely questioning why we think and act the way we do.

In this series, we're going to upend those assumptions and see what we find underneath. From open relationships to dating etiquette, infidelity to sex parties, we're going to dive in – sometimes literally – and challenge what we think we know.

So what better place to start than the word of dating apps? Only a few years ago, if you dared to admit you'd met someone via an app or a dating site, you'd be up for immediate ridicule, but these days it sounds just as strange to have got a date any other way.

So what do dating apps mean for us today? Are they affecting what we do, or are they a reflection of who we are?

They're arguably providing us with the largest social experiment ever designed – the app-makers are studying people's sexual and dating behaviour on a macro scale that was simply impossible until now.

So let's take a look and see what the experiment has to tell us...

How do men's and women's behaviours differ on dating apps and why? What're the signalling mechanisms going on in a dating profile? Why are people so angry and intense online? And how far are the apps' own algorithms skewing and controlling our dating lives?

Dre's done his research and for a while had every possible dating app installed, from threesome apps to Tinder to Grindr to Bumble. We dissect how Jon represents himself on Tinder, how many emotional meltdowns he's witnessed, and he tells the story of how he almost became Grindr's Russian translator...

Also Including:

• The secret algorithms controlling your Tinder experience
• Self-esteem and insecurity online
• Do dating apps reveal who you really are?
• The key ingredients of a successful dating profile
• Why is there so much rampant racism on these apps?

Links:

• Esther Perel's Audible series on Infidelity

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

These days Saud Juman is a clean-cut guy with a successful healthcare business dedicated to helping doctors and medical staff actually take care of themselves. But it wasn't always this way. Saud's journey has been one from darkness to light.

Back when he was a college student, Saud fell into the underworld of Toronto club life, embroiled in a world of dangerous men and power games that he could scarcely have imagined when he set out to cover his university fees by DJing.

But even though he would ultimately turn his back on that world of violence and intimidation, it taught him a lot about himself and about human nature.

Like Robert Greene teaches us in The 48 Laws of Power, human nature is in many ways universal, and the underworld is a prime playground to witness interpersonal and social dynamics in their rawest form. There, the stakes are higher and the gloves are off. Your word must be your bond, and conflict resolution is an outright survival skill.

We talk to Saud about what he learnt in the underworld that's now made him a successful entrepreneur and speaker, and what personal reinvention actually means. This isn't another saccharine redemption tale with a bow tied on it, but a look at the frightening, challenging, but also thrilling reality of transitioning from one world to another, finding yourself along the way.

Personal reinvention is vital to success in any walk of life, but how can we do it without losing our identity along the way? As Saud's story shows, the process is one of turning the coin over to see the other side, rather than trying to pretend you're something completely 'new'.

Knowing your own darkness is vital to be able to become your best self.

We also play a couple of psychological games with Saud and discover that the seeds of his personal life adventure can be found in some of the books and stories he first connected with as a child; we discuss the importance of mentorship and the challenges of trying to find and impress mentors; and we explore where the balance between humility and hunger for success lies.

As Saud puts it, 'The spectrum of light and dark exists in everybody' – life is discovering and working from where we are on that spectrum.

Also Including:

• What do respect and success really mean?
• Running with the wrong crowd and how to find your way out
• Martial arts for healing
• Hunger and curiosity
• Intuition for other people's pain

Find Saud:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

What's the difference between wisdom and experience; between faking it till you make it, or truly growing as a person; and why should you never try to claim you're a master?

Drawing on letter number 26, 'On Death and Dying', this one seems at first to be all about preparing for death and yet, beneath the surface, it's really all about embracing your life now.

While the Stoics might harp on about being ready to die well, if we're living well, then the dying well will surely take care of itself.

We find Seneca in poor health and expecting the Reaper at any moment, but he rejoices that his mind is still alive even as his body fails him. In this sombre mood, he wonders whether his mind is strong because he's old, or because he's gained wisdom over the years.

But we're not sure that's the right question, because a wise person is a curious one – one who knows they can't know anything for sure and who is excited to remain the eternal student. Where do you think you fit into that picture?

This letter give us pause for thought about Seneca himself. Is he basically a 'Death AA' member, where even if he claims to have given up the Death-fear, his whole life actually revolves around its coming and its power over him, like a sober alcoholic who lives in constant fear of what a sip of booze might do to them?

Or is Seneca trying to follow the Bodhisattva's path – of finding enlightenment, but then returning to help others, rather than sitting happily in the lotus position on a mountain forever?

Regardless of Seneca himself, the core of this letter asks us to interrogate ourselves honestly: Are we living authentically? Are we telling ourselves we're something we're not, or are we embodying the truth we want to live?

These are murky waters, because when we try to grow and change, we're learning to become something else – we can hardly claim we've made it to the finish line just as we're lacing up our shoes. We interrogate where the balance lies.

These days, endless entrepreneurs talk about leaving a legacy – but what does that really mean? Usually it's another exercise in ego masturbation, so where should our focus be if we truly want to make a positive impact in the world without it ultimately being somehow about us?

There's also time for several daft excursions into whether Pandora's Box might conceal a cat in a superposition, why Enlightenment might just be entropy in disguise, and the unexpectedly strict (and hilarious) order of English adjectives.

Also Including:

• The difference between being wise and simply being old
• How to read an Encyclopaedia
• The liberating effects of indifference through acceptance
• The timeless question: Do you need fucked?
• Why you can never outshine the master

Find Out More:

• Hit us up on our brand new Instagram!
• The full text for free on WikiSource
• About English word order – with hilarious results

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

Everyone's obsessed with 'the hustle' these days – it seems like we're meant to be on duty promoting ourselves and pushing to the next level 24/7... But what does 'hustling' even mean?

Are we meant to be glued to LinkedIn, trying to find that one magical connection that'll launch us into the stratosphere? Or diving into the world of SEO – optimising our personal websites in sacrifice to the gods of Google?

David Bryan – star of the award-winning show Trashed – joins us to talk about the real hustle: the psychological hustle.

Acting is one of the toughest careers out there when it comes to getting noticed and rising to the top, so David's knowledge and experience of that hustle runs deep. But we're not just talking acting in this conversation – this is about the psychology of motivation, self-esteem, and what real success actually feels like.

Life and work can be a grind, but how can we make it the best grind possible? What does 'talent' actually mean? Is it all in the eye of the beholder and what they value, or can it be something more?

We get into why rejection is part of the game and how to use it as a springboard rather than a tombstone; why it's better to have 10 true fans than 10,000 Instagram followers who don't really care about what you do; and what making good use of your time actually means on the day-to-day level.

We also share some of our most shameful moments and what they taught us and how David managed to put on an award-winning one-man show at the Edinburgh Festival from scratch (don't forget to check out our first interview with David (and playwright Sascha Moore) back in August when their show, Trashed, was in full swing!).

Also Including:

• The psychology of motivation
• Acting as entrepreneurship
• Why sharing your experience can be motivation in itself
• Documenting your life for yourself and your family
• How to do social media without being a narcissist
• Creating something out of nowhere

Find David:

• His professional website
• Instagram
• Twitter
• YouTube vlogs

Find Out More:

• Neil Gaiman's brilliant speech: Make Good Art

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

How and when to help other people; whether we can really get anybody to change after a certain age; how to check we're not also in need of correction (and whether we should calibrate that by looking at everyone else, or turning to our inner compass).

Drawing from Letter 25, this one is all about timing, making change, and the hard work that always requires. This week, Seneca is on Lucilius's case about some mutual friends – one old, one young, and both in need of some correction to get their lives back on track.

But how can we make people change? Can or should change ever be forced in another person?

Seneca says it all depends – context is everything and the same approach isn't going to work on everyone. So what are the most important contexts to consider, and when is the right time to push rather than bide our time?

Seneca probably didn't have access to the internet, so how does that play into things today? Can we ever convince someone to change their mind online – and given the deluge of hate messages we received after our Jordan Peterson episode, we've got quite a bit to mull over ourselves. Do we reply, give up, not care, or what?

Seneca seems to encourage shaming people to help them grow, but we think that's too dangerous an emotion to use – it didn't do much to reform Cersei Lannister, and it's unlikely to bring anyone over to your cause.

It's not all doom and gloom, though – we also talk about friendship, and how cultivating a good one relies on willing but diligent effort, like maintaining a vintage car.

And we share an amazingly effective technique to find out what you really want – to get in touch with your gut instinct without getting too caught up in your head.

Dre decides that the only way to read Seneca properly is to do so in Italian, and Jon refuses to wear a Modafinil t-shirt. Both of us are probably poopy-pants, though. You decide.

Also Including:

• When to give up on trying to help someone change
• The power of travel to change your mind
• Rage orgasms
• How your parents can fuck you up – even by being nice
• The perils of solitude
• Who and how to appoint someone to become the figure looking over your shoulder and keeping you on course

Find Out More:

• Our controversial episode on Jordan Peterson and Cathy Newman
• Tony Robbins Netflix special, I Am Not Your Guru
• Hit us up on our brand new Instagram!
• The full text for free on WikiSource

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

Struggling to find equilibrium in your life? Need to choose between several options but can't quite make out which is the best path to take?

In this Minisode, Jon takes inspiration from The Daily Stoic Journal and shares some advice on how to find internal steadiness and escape the paralysis of indecision.

What do you think? Chat to us here and let us know!

Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.