[Music] a g and tears those of us like our spirituality with the twist I haven't said that in a little bit we have like we've been a little bit away from recording I almost forgot the [...] tagline well you know but for our listeners I'm always in danger of stumbling on uhuh our listeners won't know the difference so you know yeah we have the same level of uh slow output hold [...] together yeah you know even we're practicing every day bubble gum and boogers that's what holds us together um all right so we were doing these uh nine things that can [...] up your life and we had gotten to this one uh number seven if I'm counting it right yeah we it was a really kind of a good episode for people who have already listened to that one uh if not you can go check it out where we're kind of each giving our Impressions on each of these each of these seven and it's fun in that I think different things click off for you or for me and then we get to kind of talk it through and you see things that aren't you know aren't the way I was sort of thinking about when I read it and I love it yeah right it kind of went a little bit more to my mind to like the dichotomizing mind yes when you were talking about there's a way in which the Mind wants to do that yeah you want me to read it Eric I have it in front of me if you want to do it again that's cool yeah let's do it just just for people who so they you know if they didn't listen I mean the one that we referencing is posted just before this one but just for for reference here it says and so the seventh obstacle is this um it says when you listen to debates among teachers and fellow students you are bound to be led astray by their suggestions you search blindly through blindly through a tangle of leaves and branches and then discover that there is nothing worthwhile these so-called teachers and their students are interested only in arguing about the relative merits of lesser techniques they do not know that the Sun and the Moon do not rise easily and that when they arise the is so brilliant that it can be seen by all they do not know that the Thunder does not Roar trivially but when it does the sound is so deafening that it can be heard by all they try to Dazzle each other with words not realizing that their elegant speeches are like the fleeting lights of exploding fireworks bickering over semantics they argue endlessly and can never agree on anything being blinded by discussions and arguments this is the seventh obstacle yeah there's a lot of like great poetry in that one again too that we talked about in the other episode too it's very poetic yeah this I mean this is based on DST a DST view of the world yeah but this that passage in particular when they talk about the the Sun and the Moon and the Brilliance being seen and the Thunder and sound like that's very DST yeah is that's like that's dsts dosting for sure yeah yeah yeah well anyway so we kind of went in different directions with it and at the end of that episode there was one other thing that had hit me especially with the intellectualization which was why do people do these things because the last three we're going to talk about we're in the stretch run of this thing finally right after all the different conversations we had we have two more of the nine left and they're they're interesting and that they all have something to do with like to my mind avoidance right avoidance is a thing that goes through all of them this one being at least I'm taking this one in that direction that there's an intellectualization that's kind of avoidant you know and then the other one boy my voice is funny today when we get to it will be things like and we'll talk more in detail when we do them we'll do our own separate episodes but they have to do with like you start and then you kind of Peter out and you don't follow through or you keep avoiding and you keep saying I'll get to it next week I'll start developing myself or next month or uh you know next year next decade yeah next lifetime I'm on that next lifetime yeah so there's like a lot of that kind of stuff going on in these things and it just got me thinking because I know people who are like this especially with the intellectualization but like why do people do this and I thought that was L like kind of a Capper to this one the seventh one and maybe a lead into the other two right yeah yeah because to me I sort of get the feeling like it has to do with like at least in part now there might be multiple reasons but at least in part it has to do with like trying to be avoidant something about this where uh as I ask myself this question and look around at the people I know who kind of seem to do these kinds of things right and we're trying and us too you know and myself as well and I'll absolutely that you can see that there are these moments or these times when you're just being avoidant and what you're really being avoidant of is kind of negative emotions and negative experiences and you just don't want to have to look at them so either in obstacle number seven you [...] around about it right or maybe in the other ones you kind of like come up with excuses and r izations of why you're not doing things and I thought well that's to me maybe part of the Capper of this and maybe it'll give us a chance to talk a little bit about defense mechanisms in Psychology right and we can go through some of them what they look like so that was sort of my idea with this do you that's good it it reminds me and I'm wondering you know we don't have I don't have my notes up from the episodes but the episodes that we did probably in the beginning of last year I think it was around February uh the egos EG o the existential Guardian operating system which you know is my acronym um yeah and I'm just you know I'm just wondering if this doesn't you know hearken back to those those thoughts that I that we shared during that time or I mean that was inspired kind of like by my own you know view perspectiv you know I think totally don't you think yeah I think so I think so and so for people who are listening if you want to go double back and you know you know if you're if you're in the deep cut with us you know go on going through this as we're going through this um those might be a couple interesting episodes I might even go back and Rel listen and I do listen to some of our stuff on from time to time actually I think I'm gonna go back and and give those a spin after we do this now and and yeah sometimes I listen to some of the stuff that's old I don't do it maybe as much but I've had times when I've had where I'm like oh some of that [...] we saying makes sense look at that there's a little gem in there you know like tot it's funny because you say [...] and then you forget like we do that all the time right absolutely some realization you're like oh I think I got this and then you totally forget it and then sometimes you can even go back in your own notebook or your own journal or your own episode of a podcast and go oh God I got that two years ago and I'm still struggling so I was like thinking about this thing when we were doing that episode of like why does this happen and I can say I certainly you know we like to be honest about this so I can certainly say I've experienced this myself and I probably was looking at myself more honestly recently and saying yeah I'm a little bit avoidant there's things that have happened in my life that I'm probably like not entirely thrilled about uh and I'm being a little being a little bit meditatively avoidant like I I was like yeah I'm doing this thing now I have like these commitments in the like certainly in Buddhist Tantra when you get the initiations you do commitments and I do keep them which can get me to like two and a half three hours in a day so I'll still do it but if I'm looking at myself honestly I know when I'm being sloppy about these things you know and I know and I'm not doing them with my full heart and intention and full Awareness on some level and I had to be honest I like I was looking at myself you know after we did that episode and like planning this one and I was going yeah I'm like I'm [...] around in this way I'm doing this funny stuff because I don't want to have to look at aspects of my own thoughts and emotions and uh have to deal with that I don't want to do it so I was like yeah okay perfect episode for me to talk about too because I can honestly say that I you know we have moments all of us have moments that are like that right and I'm have one of those moments that are like that where I'm I can be honest about that and what's your experience with that kind of stuff so I went I went you know they always remember that movie Tropic Thunder yeah yeah it's a bit I haven't seen in a while yeah yeah yeah um okay so anyways I I went I went full Daniel with this one just now while you were talking and because there seemed to be a question so we're talking about being defensive and and having intellectual or psychological avoidance as the mechanism of that you know defensiveness right I was gonna say defensiv but that's probably not you know the right I like it though I like I like nothing wrong with a nice coinage yeah yeah it works good are made up all kinds of words but the the question is avoiding what yeah and well I mean yeah okay good so I got some stuff on that tell me what you think yeah so again and I don't have any you know I feel like a magician right now I don't have anything up my sleeves I have no notes I'm just you know doing yeah being in the moment you're Daniel it I'm Daniel it I'm 100% I think and I and I and I may my perspective has been shifted on this very recently um we you know we hosted a a Meditation Retreat and um you know people people did some meditations and whatnot um yeah whatnot and I'm realizing that like even though some people want to engage in this kind of work to improve their situation because they realize it's untenable for a lifetime you know life is already hard but then you have internal suffering as well and you realize there might be some sensation to that if you work on it a little bit you know what I'm saying yeah but there is this kind of like avoiding some of the recommendation on things when you're preparing for a retreat of any type and I think that what people want out of their work is fundamental change but even though part of them wants it the part of them that is more deeply ingrained that wants to remain doesn't and so you have this split in that there is some aspect that is the the growing aspect the increasing one that one that wants to progress that doesn't want to deal with what they've been dealing with that is driving people to seek in in in in concert with the seventh uh not the seventh Perfection but in the seventh obstacle that they're seeking people who they want to put their trust in and say can you show me the way and yet they're LED astray by their own internal dialogue about oh well they say this one's better than that one and this one isn't good as good as this one do you know what I'm saying and that that feeds the part of them that goes see we don't even know what's right and I think it's because they're they're even though they're seeking it they're they're they're resisting fundamental change deep personal shifting you know like something that would just like change your perspective wholly or at least in part by 45 or 90 degrees does that make sense does that jog with your yeah yeah um so let me like what's the Tropic Thunder connection though I said I went full Daniel I'm not gonna oh full Daniel okay got it was like the the like the Tropic Thunder thing was the last thing I expected to hear in that moment yeah yeah no okay so yeah you're talking about um well I think it's like another way to think what I was put in my notes too which is sort of like psychological resistance right absolutely that's what I'm saying there's a way in which you know that psychological resistance can run up in different directions one of the ways is like what they're pointing out in this number seven which is like you might just end up like bullshitting around right and um and then it also can lead to the the point of what you're talking about which I guess is well I I and I know people who are like this too I suppose everyone says different things and who knows and so I don't to do anything anyways right that does happen like I like it's interesting for me because I tend to think like a like a clinician and so I think in terms of case studies and I go through and I say have I seen people do this and I'm like yeah and I can name I wouldn't name them in a podcast of course but I can say oh there's a certain person I know who's done this or that you know uh in a case study way and then usually it's multiples it's not just like one person right so that whole idea of like I've known multiple people who will do specifically that number seven thing they'll intellectualize intellectualize and intellectualize and they never start which was what we were talking about a lot in the last episode but you go to why um and I think you're talking about from the point of view of like a kind of an ego protection thing right there's this aspect of themselves that wants to be protected now for people maybe you know like uh we try to put this in some kind of like spiritual context so Daniel's really interested in a funny way in like karmak CaRu School of Buddhism like that's sometimes how I hear you and you have teachers within that right yeah yeah yeah and they talk that way for sure that's like a karmic Vibe with you right I think you love that in the Zen schools too right have that Vibe and you're have you have a like such a acute awareness of like that issue me too in our in my own way too and I could certainly remember when I was starting to do Zen I could feel like God there's some part of me that just wants to [...] resist this yeah y it's Clinging On you know and it doesn't want to do it you know so you could make it into like you can almost sort of personify it in that way right and kind of make it like okay now I'm gonna like anthropomorphize this into like an ego thing or something almost a wrestling match going on there yeah R of spirituality that will do that and of course that can be helpful because in moments you can call yourself out or at least call that part of yourself out yeah I see you you intellectualizing [...] I see you and all your rationalizations or whatever so you can do it that way yeah and there's schools that are like that so I think that's what I hear when you were talking that way exactly so the other thing I think to me and when I was sort of taking notes on was this whole idea of repression I'm like very much interested in that question right yeah and I teach you know classes for TCM people where I kind of try to make that point a lot of what's getting people is a kind of a repression that's another way of talking about the same set of issues yeah got me to this whole issue of psychological defense mechanisms right especially because I think in the last episode when I was taking down my notes on this I was like yeah intellectualization is a major defense mechanism it's how you protect yourself from those things that you don't want to see of course that could be a major technique of some person's ego right yes maybe their ego is an intellectualize and they try to handle their self protection by intellectualizing yeah harmonize those two points of view yeah and I think that's more common uh people say oh I'm trying to I'm just trying to be rational I'm just approaching this rationally you know and they they apply something they've never been trained in first of all or even had a a course in like understanding R like rationality I don't even think people understand you know what that even means other than to speak slowly and clearly you know what I'm saying like it's not like they're said you're reading C cons critique of pure reason or something and saying I'm going to be rational or something like that no no no they're they're not doing that and so they're trying to apply some method to keep them inside of their normal operating system in their mind you know in this kind of daily working mode okay I'm gonna be right here and right here actually is devoid of emotion I'm being rational you know I mean it can be if that's how the defense mechanism is working I mean that's one of them right so yeah it's cool okay yeah I'm listening I'm in yeah and so then when you when you do that it it takes away some of the depth of people's feeling of things yeah you know and you're only operating out of one you know out of one Spirit essentially right you know Chinese medicine we have these kind of like five spirits and you're only operating out of one and you don't give the others the opportunity to sort of speak to you in a more kind of holistic way in a more embodied sort of you know way I know you and I have you know slight not disagreements on this but just looking at it differently but I just feel like this kind of um debate this kind of Psych this philosophical psychology this you know bantering back and forth doesn't really touch people in a deep kind of a way only if they are allowing that to hit them in a certain spot they say the right words it's like magic and then all of a sudden they feel it you know I guess it's kind of like if it's functioning as a def mechanism it can't correct right just by definition it's doing something protective and in that sense what it's really what it seems to be doing is not what it's really doing it seems to be like it's doing something I'm gonna intellectualize my way through this and get a clearer picture on things and we could all say that's fine sure that's not what this thing is doing this has an like a kind of an ulterior kind of functionality to it right that's not so by almost by definition it's covering stuff right sometimes I use that thing like a concealer truth right yeah it's kind of a thing there that okay it might seem like it's true but what it's really functioning as is kind of a concealer and I'm again I'm fascinated by that like psychological thing because I think it's it's so ubiquitous right yes you were kind of talking about from the point of view of like different aspects of the spirit or the mind in TCM too just to put that into context right yeah yeah yeah yeah and there's like these different ideas you know they have these names like the PO and the Han and the Y and the jur and Chinese and you can kind of give them them English translations like the will and it gets tied into like the kidney system or I think you're really talking about the ye in that case right yeah the mind yeah mind the intellectualizing part of the mind that can kind of split itself off it doesn't want to connect to those other aspects of the Mind the psyche or the spirit it wants to just kind of go on its own thing but in from where I'm coming from that psych point of view well then it's actually doing something artificial it's actually acting as a mechanism of repression yeah yeah so I mean uh okay so I I guess what's going to happen is we're going to be tying back this ego thing into this repression thing for the rest of this episode which suits me just fine um uh the repression thing I in Psych theory is like are supposed to be of things that are somehow painful right that's something that you're uncomfortable with something that causes you pain and you want to smoosh it yeah right so you can think of this in terms of emotions and memories and that's probably pretty common ways to talk right uh and we'll maybe take those apart as we go and we'll each up our own thoughts on that but I mean the other part about is that you can also talk about repressing thoughts weirdly enough yeah the thoughts can act as kind of like a smoke screen in a way but also you can have thoughts that like that's an uncomfortable thought smoosh you try to push it down and I was just thinking about like Carl Jung with this as I sometimes do and he has this kind of amazing story of when he's like he's a kid maybe like 12 or 13 or something maybe I can't remember the exact age um I don't remember the exact age but he's like in his hometown his dad is you know the pastor and they have a kind of a beautiful cathedral there it's one of his stories from M's dreams Reflections his autobiography and there's this thing where he's realizes he's gonna have a bad thought and I have to laugh because it's a funny thing to realize you know he's like I'm have a bad thought and he smooshes it and then he keeps popping up I'm going to have a bad thought it's going to be a bad thought and he was trying to think about like the beauty of the cathedral and he was trying to imagine God in the sky and you know all the kind of imagery of that kind of stuff you know what that would feel like and look like especially from the point of view of maybe a kid and um he tries to smoos it for days and then eventually he's like no I have to have this thought I have to let this thought come through and I think he kind of even rationalize those with himself saying well okay if I'm having a thought God must want me to have the or something too but he kind of goes through this whole process of deliberating uh and then when he eventually gets to like okay I'm going to let the thought out and what it is is he's was imagining God in the throne in the sky and then under the throne like a giant turd falls from the backside of God and goes down and crushes the cathedral and that was the thought he was trying to repress because he just felt so bad about it you know someone who like his family was very religious and he was having bad religious thoughts and and uh I think the story is amazing you know that he tells it because it it's like that too you can repress a thought or repress a realization or repress an idea we don't always think about that but I wanted to share that one too because that is kind of interesting yeah yeah yeah it's not always just an emotion or a memory right yeah obviously more typically we talk about emotions right definitely like fear or anger come to mind really fast and those are the two big ones that they mentioned in the Zen training is the ones that they thought were most dangerous but I think sadness and grief is pretty dangerous too absolutely yeah so those things can get repressed so you're talking about repression of those major emotions from the Chinese medical point of view we got seven major emotions and those are some of the really major ones right that people can um for me lately I'm probably thinking it's more sadness and grief yeah I'm like that's probably the one for me but other times it could be other things for other people fear anger I had a really interesting conversation with Joanie Osborne last week Daniel was out traveling and so we didn't do our thing last week um but I talk with Joanie last week and I was just describing some lives of people I know and some people that I really love and care about and then she just immediately went well that's all from Fear she said like that you know especially because think for the like I was talking with a couple people I knew who were women and she was like oh yeah that happens a lot to women they're repressing a lot of fear right and a lot of the notot of what will happen for them and again she's saying that as someone who works primarily in her in her clientele with women and trying to help them change their lives so but anyways it could be really any of those emotions for any of us right um so you know obviously we can be repressing emotions in that way the other thing that kind of hit me though is in the psych literature you could be repressing all kinds of other stuff that's a little bit less obvious so um I thought about the Gospel of Thomas line that's one of my favorites I don't know if we quoted on the show ever depends on it is the the Gospel of Thomas is one of these kind of um quasi Gnostic Gospels you know where it's not really even telling the story of Jesus it's just a bunch of sayings and some of them are really surprising you know some of them seem like they come from the New Testament and some of them are like wow that's ACC credited to Jesus okay it wouldn't be what you'd expect to hear given maybe The Stereotype of that figure or something but one of my really favorite ones I sometimes share with students goes if you bring forth that which is within you what you bring forth will save you if you don't bring forth that which was within you what you don't bring forth will destroy you with the idea that those things that you repress will kind of eat you away on the inside turn destructive so you know I think that's a powerful thing about repression uh you know from one of the sort of Western spiritual sources and I don't even know if in the Buddhist World they often even say that that strongly but I think the idea I he had Daniel was that it sometimes is not always just like the negative experiences or the traumas or those things that are getting repressed sometimes there's a whole there's a whole kind of um aspect of other things that are being repressed too it's not just those things it can be the things that maybe you could bring forth so certainly in like the Freudian thing and we're gonna be referencing sort of Freud's daughter and a Freud and her ideas of defense mechanisms because she's one of the people who really list them out but you know obviously in Freud there's a lot of sexuality that gets repressed yeah and that's not intrinsically bad or anything sexuality isn't bad but it just gets repressed for whatever the reasons those things have to be repressed in that person's life right they get smooshed and so you know that could be seen almost as a positive aspect of things right if you want to go sex positivity right but it gets pressed and so it's not always just the negative thoughts in the terms of things like fears and angers and sadnesses and griefs you can get other things that you say well that's those are even potentially positive parts of experience in human nature but those things get repressed right right and it's hard not to talk about that you know when you're going to mention you know some Freud stuff you obviously he's talking about that all the time the consequences of sexual repression which are pretty major right and people don't even want to see those things sometimes directly it's kind of painful to look at that like I I feel that in people aspects of yourself you know yeah I'm just thinking of like you I mean it's accepted now to be you know openly gay but it wasn't for a very long long time and and even people even though it's accepted more societally even within people's families and communities I'm sure there was still tons and tons of repression you know based on religion or you know geographical location or whatever you know that that's just on a gross level you know let alone uh not doing you know again going back to what is it the the second the the second obstacle you know uh family kind of family demands things like this uh that you are you know not fulfilling what you should be doing uh societally wanting CH you know saying you should want children in this lifetime or you should do you should fill this role based on whatever you know what I'm saying or any any of these kinds of things that are kind of a you're when you're trying to live your authentic self and you you've decided that this is what it is that you want to do at least for the next the foreseeable future and that doesn't fit in the the mold of what someone else or other people have planned for you the time between you express yourself if you ever even do and the space when you are not you are actively repressing you know aspects of who you are yeah yeah I mean like I think from a forian point of view there's probably this idea that people have all kinds of sexual feelings of different types you know some of them may be homosexual feelings they feel uncomfortable with some of them might be like balloons traction between me and this partner and like you know what' you say I'm sorry balloons there might be ATT attraction between me and some person but I better smoosh it down because that would be uncomfortable there all kinds of stuff like this right um but I like the idea of like I did those I did it too as I was like kind of jotting my notes down you could be repressing major aspects of just who you are right and I think the two people that you know are kind of the two people who maybe are favorite for us when this issue comes up is partially kyl Rogers again right his idea that you could be really repressing kind of your own true nature or something right that's who was the other one Eric there's one more right that who's the other guy uh he has like the repression bands you know oh Wilhelm Reich yeah Reich there you go yeah those they're really talking about repression I think reich's interested in repression of of sexual feelings but like something even Beyond sexuality like the desire to connect with other people yeah yeah they're like Bas not basic but they urges yeah they're very deep yeah fundamental things in the nature right yeah this would be like for me anyways like I know we're sort of getting off topic but there's this uh Buddhist Meditation on death and dying or or the dissolving of the elements as you make as you work your way back to like what we' say like the clear light or the you know the light of Heaven yeah you know um but in in in the dissolving of in the process of this meditation there uh you eventually get to like very basic masculine and feminine drives you know yeah and and I think where willhelm Reich is discussing is in those very very basic drives yeah I think that's true desire for love desire for creativity desire for u connection and sharing right desire to be held yeah these very very primary things yeah I thought about him a little bit I guess I had led with Rogers but he belongs there too I think you're totally right yeah Rogers has the whole idea you know we've talked about this before in different episodes that there's some part of yourself that wants to express itself so very similar idea kind of like your inner Dow your inner nature right and then in a certain sense that can get repressed too and that really has the Gospel of Thomas vibe to me if you don't bring that out it can kind of get a little bit self-destructive or something like that potentially right even in the course of this be repressed you know yeah even even in the course of this conversation as we're starting to like what we're saying work you know we're working deeper right we're working deeper whereas the how do we call it uh the psychological defense mechanisms keep you on the surface yeah it's true you know they put the block they put the blockade so that you don't go deeper so that you are only operating on a a very topical level so that you the internal kind of reflective parts of yourself stay dormant well I mean it goes back to your idea of the ego too because Rogers has this notion of like self-concept but he doesn't use it positive almost like the way you're using ego right the idea that people get kind of some artificial version of themselves that you kind of like visualize as being like on the surface right how they deal with the outside world and then there's another part that wants to express out and it can't and it gets like frustrated internally and it creates all kinds of like psychological symptoms then potentially right but it's buried in this defensive way yeah there was um and I just I don't know what where this is coming from but I remember when I was younger and I would go visit my mom in California she was a psych nurse at this time and and I think she was working at a place where there was a I don't know who I don't know that you know the names of the the psycholog more contemporary psych psychologist better than I do but who was involved in in making and using masks was that Freud or not or I'm sorry was that Yung yeah Yung would be probably the most logical person with that I don't know there are other people maybe you would think about that too but would be the most obvious person yeah I mean he's I feel like there might have been but so let's just say let's just say about Persona and stuff yeah yeah so let's just say it was young and and so she had a friend of hers who worked at this at this practice where she was working at and he was very much into that and he had masks all over his office you know and he talked about this and so one of the things that we did you know summertime and my mom's trying to entertain us a little bit you know and so we made masks okay with like plaster over our faces and we made a couple of them and and she wanted us to paint them different uh Styles now she didn't say think about what one is like when you're sad and what one is like when you're angry but having this conversation I feel like we at some point defend the mask you know okay and and and our so how we view ourselves to be perceived or how we want to project in order for others to perceive us in a certain way and so you feel like you have to sort of not take yourself to a place where you might have to change your mask because that persona that that mask has its own kind of momentum and doesn't want to be changed or challenged in that way you know it has a residence actually and that by engaging in consistent dialogue or we'll say like incessant dialogue perhaps it's an externalization of an internal process and this way you number seven where you're intellectualizing out and kind of yeah that it's because you're so used to doing that in your own mind already that when you find it when you find it happening in reality it's a justification for your own Madness actually you know it's a what do they call that a confirmation bias yeah a confirmation bias yeah sorry yeah it's funny yeah because it's kind of like I can I can even take this inner stuff and now push it out and that's even more effective isn't it now I can get you to buy into it and I got external validation for it yes yeah yeah it's interesting with the young thing is they I wrote I thought about Reich I thought about Rogers I'm glad you brought Reich up more though because I ended up not putting notes than I really should have and then you know Yung and he has that whole idea of like a Persona like he includes that in his sort of psychological model of a person yeah does talk about the fact that people will develop this outer mask a lot of times related to their profession which I know is a big thing for you Daniel you always kind of like to go back to that it's like will your profession sort of start to scramble who you are or something that's major point that you like to bring a lotes um so that the Persona thing is there and and that becomes part of what will block the person the outer Persona and then probably things that are a little bit more like you're saying underneath the surface maybe not the exact Mass to the outside but inner parts but they're still kind of false on some level right still operating in that defensive way you know they're not trying to bring Clarity in some ways they're they're opos skating right that was a fun not slightly tangent but like that was a really fun exercise I'm gonna do that I'm gonna do that again make a make a couple masks and and and color them you know like paint them in different ways so that they can I don't know be you know see it's good to I don't know I'm that's a good it's a I mean y would love that [...] it was him or not but he'd be totally into it because he would have people like make their mandelas too yeah express yourself right yeah yeah um I had think kind of interesting little yungi experience around this you know to kind to make it kind of we're making it personal so um so I had the thing where you know Young's thing is that you'll repress who you are and I I guess what I was thinking about when I was jotting down these notes was that these different people talk about that in different ways like uh you know Rogers is talking about you're oppressing some version of your truest nature or something and I was think I had this interesting experience with Y I was trying to describe it to uh some other people where you know part of the Yung real ization is to realize that your inner archetypal world and the AR is there but also there the archetypes are all outside of you as well you know which is a Trippy realization you know to think okay I have like an inner trickster figure but that's also existing in the world around me you know like he thinks that way the archetypes aren't just inside but they're also outside and they connect together that's how he gets even those things like synchronicity and stuff you know the whole world starts to synchronize around these archetypal themes because they're not just inside of you they're outside too and I was really thinking about that pretty deep and he talks about when you're in heightened emotional states this will become more obvious maybe you're in love and you feel it more or maybe you're going through some spiritual transformation you feel it more maybe you've been going through like other some other state that's very heightened you know I think he went through it in times even there was sadness and grief he would feel this but I thought well that's something you could kind of block too you know and I realized like yeah I'm not I know that that's true and I can have that experience I have had that experience and I could almost tap into it again as I was thinking about this in the couple of weeks since we've really done this and we've seen each other it's like yeah and I'm blocking that somehow you know I'm blocking the full feeling of that right probably because in some way I'm being a little bit avoidant or I'm not entering into my my authentic inter Spa Inner Space in the in the most the most meaningful way I can there's something holding me back a little bit elements of my own defensive stuff right in the moment and I was like yeah that's a deep thing and so I kind of made the point of like let me stop doing this and I really had that feeling of that kind of magical feeling of the inner and the outer kind of connecting in that way uh which again you know I certainly have had um you know a lot of times in like heightened emotional states again if you're going through a big transformation or in love or something you feel that stuff much more easily right and I was like yeah probably blocking this and I shouldn't you know so I'm just kind of using is what Yung would say you can block yourself from you can cut yourself off from yourself yeah all these kinds of ways which might have different nuances of what that would mean you know anyways I didn't mean to talk over you yeah no no no you're good so I guess but you know I'd like you know with the last you know little little chunk of time that we have here i' i' if if you're if you're good with it can we can we discuss some kind of Remedies you know some some things to be aware of or some things to do or I don't know I don't know where where you had planned on going but I think that would be I do one more thing just real quick before we and maybe what we can do as a remedy is look at some of the defense mechanisms more specifically so that you can kind of develop a look okay good yeah that could be a remedy right okay yeah I just was like I had one other little anecdote about this with a recent experience especially with the repression I think we always think about things in terms of trauma or negative things and that's all true right and people do have to get over those I almost feel like somehow it's a little bit of a in the culture though this is a very personal opinion that you can just if you just get rid of the trauma everything's hunky dory like everything is just getting rid of negative emotions or something repressed but the whole idea of things people repressing things that are more complicated like we talked about Freud and sexuality or something and I was just thinking I had a recent experience with someone where they were talking about like repressing probably like love or the more positive emotions I really like uh the poet William Blake and he has these whole things where he talks about like it's a danger to repress your desires too that's dangerous it's not just the traumas that get repressed sometimes it's people's really deepest desires so it can be thoughts it can be feelings it can be memories it can be maybe things that we don't think of as being bad like why would I think repressing who I am like an a Carl Rogers or Wilhelm Reich or Carl Yu those things like those things should be positive but they still get repressed MH because they can bring up things that are uncomfortable so I had this kind of interesting experience where it was someone I had dinner with uh last month I think and it was some I hadn't really had dinner with in a long time though I've known for a bit and we were talking and she really shared this very deep thing which was that she reached this point in her life where she had to make a decision in her personal life between probably someone that she loved more and someone who seemed like a more pragmatic partner in choice and there was a lot of difficulties maybe in choosing the person that she loved more and there were real reasons for her to choose the more pragmatic choice and she really felt like she had to do it and I understood why you know I was like yeah I understand what you're saying you know you really had to make these choices and I was supportive of that when we were talking about when she was laying it out to me I was like I totally understand why you did this you know yet at the same time she was saying yeah it was it was hard in a sense that she felt like she was repressing love right in those feelings and she was smooshing that down and she said it like in that language she said yeah when I had to do this I repress my feelings for this person I Smosh them down you know and it was very hard for her and that gets a little bit to maybe what Reich was talking about too those kinds of things can get repressed as well and those aren't traumas those are things that you could think of as being positive but those feelings had to be smooshed and so what was the longer term I think she's still coming to terms with it I think she saw the person again and it was very strong for her and they started to rush back out again though it's been years since they were involved and you know she was almost kind of tears about it it was a really difficult experience you know but I think she's trying to work through to figure out what she wants to do in any case it was like I I was thinking about that as I was putting these notes together today because I've had interesting experiences with people going through this lately one other person who kind of fell in love with someone and I think probably even realized completely different things about how they felt about themselves their sexuality and they kind of had to break and they had to smush and so I just I wanted to include it in a list of things get to get that get repressed you know because we don't always think of those things being repressed those things can be scary if you go to meditate too you don't want to feel all that [...] right like that's uncomfortable so people kind of smush a whole range of things I think that's what I was trying to get to does that make sense what I'm saying there Daniel yes absolutely yeah it's it's an interesting thing and I thought it was just very articulate the way this person was they were just like yeah and I smushed it down and I did that and I think she had the experience of seeing the person again it was like highly emotional for again and she said all this stuff is like coming back out again it was all just because it was repressed so I guess I guess the thing is it's a riff on obstacle seven going into obstacle 8 and nine these things are all difficult right in the whole range of them right and um what can happen then is you can get avoidant and then you start doing let's say obstacle 7even that intell sexualization thing because you don't want to face these things or to my mind when we get to the other one similar things going on I'm being avoided in certain ways and it really has to do with the fact that like if I really have to sit with myself and look at it it's uncomfortable it feels bad and I don't want to have to do it so that's my kind of idea here does that make sense to you to Daniel yeah yeah yeah yeah um okay so Solutions I guess what I was thinking about in this and I'll be curious to hear your ideas as well was like sometimes it's nice to have a name for things and maybe just name them you can go oh I'm doing that thing like the minute I started really thinking about this honestly you know in myself even lately I was like yeah I'm being a little avoid you know and I wrote some people about it you know um and I said yeah there's something wrong with my meditations now they're not right there's something off about them you know they're a little sloppier they're not as tight as they should be I'm not doing with the same amount of passion there's something wrong and when I had to look at it honestly myself I was like yeah I'm being defensive I'm doing defense mechanism I think maybe just having that word I found helpful because now I was like okay now I've called myself out on it I've named it I've said what it is and now I can be forced to kind of look at it um does that sense to you too Daniel yeah you also mentioned reaching out to people yeah and I think that is another really good really good way of bringing light to your shadows you know there is not enough time in the world while we're here in our lifetimes to have that kind of relationship with that many people who can who can do that kind of reflection for for you but in the um recognition for importance on connectivity it is very crucial to have people who can do that with you you know very very important because they will see you they can see you and if you hold them in a special place and you respect them and they you know you guys share enough that they can say yeah oh yeah you are that's right you are doing that thing and here's also where you do that thing and you're like oh [...] I didn't ask for that but okay fine thank you you know what I'm saying it helps it really it's so true sometimes like I don't want to hear that other one I'm just this one I'll get to that one maybe later and maybe I'm just gonna try to deny that one for a while longer exactly um so so having so another so so one is is labeling stuff so that you can kind of condense it codify it put it into a uh not put it into a box but just be aware that it's not some passing phen enigmatic phenomenon right our language tonight has been a little bit high brow Eric if I can actually you know say so you were inspired by that DS poetry we just are our tongues are stumbling over themselves trying to talk about the thunder strikes and that's right that's right that's right yeah yeah thunder struck isn't that ACDC we're we're we're dripping in eloquence kind of Dripping in something that's right yeah [...] probably so yeah so so naming something naming something uh using a a a connection a community or a person uh these are a couple good ones yeah I think that's right and I I would say that on some level I think after I got my head shrunk with my psych Mentor Michael I realized the power of that now I think I had those kinds of friendships before where I tried but I think as I got more open psychologically then I think a lot of my really good relationships with people started to take on that tone yeah so like really the most valuable ones and the ones that were most dear to me were the ones where there was that element of expressiveness to them absolutely and so friendship but then it's which is different than let's say a mentor yeah I think that's right right and so you if you have that relationship with somebody that's good because also when you do have you know a friendship I I view you know for those who are watching the video here actually everyone's gonna have to watch the video because we can't do just audio anymore um but you can still listen to it audio if you don't have video but you know it's you're you're you're eye to eye with your peers but with when you're with a a a a teacher I don't want to call it a guru or Mentor there you go it's a mentor you do have this little bit of like reverence for them in in a sense that you you of course you respect your friend whoever that might be you know but this they refer to it in you know Buddhism as like a spiritual friend you know someone who you have reverence for who you may not necessarily give the entire story to but you'll present them with the Salient facts and allow them the space to speak you know and you'll you will do the filter in generally speaking um it's a deep one because I think with G rache I felt that feeling of like respect for him in a way that sometimes held me back I think I've talked about that a little bit in our teacher episode too when I kind of look back and I was like that wasn't from him that was from me you know the first time I met him we were just in the toilet at juwel Harton in Arbor and he just came out of the John and immediately shook my hands right out of the stall so he wasn't being formal with me at least not in that moment you know maybe if you approached him when he was sitting in his more official position there was more difference there or you know what I mean but I felt something maybe because of like respect for him you know like there was a little of some kind of paternal feeling or something like that that popped up where I like I didn't fully do that with Lama Glenn I've been pretty I I'll be pretty blunt about some of the things and I've done that with other spiritual teachers too at times yeah I think I I wish I would have done that more with rache you know just to talk about that that connection maybe between this and obstacle number five right how do you work with teachers and things like that yeah yeah or maybe that's obstacle number six um yeah so I I I think it's it's a it's a powerful thing to be able to do that I was thinking about you know they talk about sometimes the three jewels in Buddhism the Buddha the Dharma and the Sana but then they talk about the three roots in Tantra right which gets to be sort of more like uh the guru and then you know uh the um the yidam and then the dacas and the dinis right and um the dcas and theis are kind of like the S so when you're there interacting with your other s peers in a tantric way you're all being dacas and D kinis for one another yeah you're being enlightening figures for one another you're you're functioning in that role and that's maybe a powerful way to think about that right or now in this moment relative to me you're an enlightening Force because I'm sharing this with you you're giving me this feedback back and that's going to help enlighten me and I can do that role for you as well right we haven't talked about that too much the idea that three jewels and the three Roots it hasn't come up too much no but that you know dacas and theis are like these I didn't even Define those things if you haven't familiar with those words those are sort of there's male and female in that but enlightening figures they're kind of goddess Gods yeah Angels if you want yeah yeah so in that moment you're an angel yeah that's a good way of putting it I like that you're the angel in that moment right you're the you're the goddess yeah you're the guardian angel we're supposed to get over our mundane impressions of things so yeah know when you're really enlightening conversation with someone and they're giving you the good feedback back they're the teacher right or they're they're Tara or they're mandry in that moment they're being that so I if if we're going to build off of this kind of ideology then you know we can't forget about you know asking for asking the universe giving it giving it up giving up your struggle to the universe and asking for direction and that direction remedy I can see you know like asking for a dream uh an inspiration to come from just you know mundane life uh a vision of some type you know whether that be again while you're sleeping or while you're in meditation or just something to pop into your head while you're you know but I feel like you have to be open to that you know if you're not open to it and then you ask for it it's you know there's this there's a meditative technique that I have that was not really taught to me and actually was with poo pooed when I asked about it so you know people will be doing you know because meditation for most people is extremely difficult oh wait a minute for everyone is extremely difficult even if you're quote unquote good at it you know someone's like oh I'm no good at it I'm like yeah neither am I I just keep trying you know and like whatever you get better and some days are really great and some days you're like ah this sucked but you do reach points of of you know really deep States and Blissful States actually and you also reach places of like extreme frustration where you're like not doing you know you're not doing well you're uncomfortable this is not how you this you know you're doing it incorrectly you're like oh man what the hell and so you know you're supposed to rely on your patience and your compassion for yourself and your connection to your teachings and whatever but the thing when I asked when I asked my teacher I said well can I ask for help and he was like no you just you know go back to your practice and whatever but I will say anytime that I've asked for help it comes not instantaneously and not always so subtle um but it does it does arrive it will arrive and so I think you can ask for help from whatever you believe in as the universe if you are you know questioning something or you're in this kind of hyper intellectualization and you've named it you said okay I'm going to call this thing you know internal chatter I know this internal chatter is a problem of mine because it's keeping me away from something I'm not quite sure what you know please whoever is listening can you please show me Give Me A Sign to kind of move me one way or another or you know help me clear this away from me you know I'm not saying it's going to work every time but like if we're doing uh Buddha Dharma s or as you called it Guru yidam dakini this to me would would fit in the yidm part you know in the sort of you or the Dharma part in the universality of uh the supporting nature of reality towards your benefit yeah it's kind of interesting because some people I think within the Tibetan Buddhist world will say you can you can ask the teacher in your mind if you have that kind of relationship so you can kind of think of that maybe any even in different ways one of the things that really struck me and I did it at some point when I was exploring the cabalistic meditations which we did a little bit on some episodes ago but we have never done a really cabala deep dive so we've been doing this for four years and to be honest we haven't even [...] scratched the surface of this stuff it's really crazy yeah yeah yeah um but in any case they do one where you just talk to you just talk to God yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a talking to a god or talking to Allah or talking to Adonai or whatever you want to talk about and um uh nakan I guess bretl was really supposed to be one of the ones where I read that first and I thought well that's kind of fascinating thing to do what would that be like and um he gives you a little kind of it's it'd be terrible to call it a mantra because of course they don't like the ideas of mantras in that way necessarily but there's a little thing that you say Rabon sham you know is the thing that that you kind of lead into not that my Hebrew is that great but that's why I remember you know sort of that kind of thing and then you kind of use that as a lead you say that a certain number of times MH and he says you know sort of like saying you know master of the universe or something you know yeah you open it up right I'll do this repetition of this name a number of times and then I'll just sit there quietly and uh I will go through and um you know maybe I'll ask something and see if I hear something back you know and I think at times you do you know yeah yeah yeah there's like thing like um in the Quakers um there's a really nice movie about Einstein where they talk about Arthur Edington who was one of the scientists who helped prove Einstein's work and he was a Quaker and there great scene where they're talking about how important it is as a Quaker to like listen for God we do as a Quaker we sit in silence and we listen for God right and if you do that enough you might actually feel something or hear something or something right and then of course God doesn't work for you if you don't feel comfortable with that theistic thing well maybe it's just the universe or maybe it's the da maybe the da will speak to you right if you want to go in that kind of personalized way or you know G giche it's interesting like the different perspectives on this because he was like if you have a you know a connection to one of like say the Buddhist goddesses or something and I do this you can just talk to them and he would say do that talk to them talk to T see what she has to say Spirit guides yeah talk to her you have a thing and I there's one of the ones I have initiation and that I feel close to I've done a number of Mantra Retreats on her in particular and I'll like I'll chat you know and I'll see if and I you know sometimes you know it's a funny thing I think we may be talked about this before but sometimes they'll answer something back that you don't even expect usually usually those answers are the most correct they give you something that you believe that you're already thinking about ask again it's interesting because I've had moments where like you know she's like well look at it from this perspective and I'm like that's right yeah yeah that's true I think I learned that some of it things that you know you could tell you have psychological resistance you don't want to face but sometimes it's just an element of truth that you hadn't seen it that way yeah well that's the that's the dancing the dancing around perspectives freely you know being able to move and move and move and not be stuck you know you're your choices you're empowered in your choices as you are not fixed to a position based out of uh any causality other than your own choice so I guess you get to this thing of like you know part of that is a solution and using those different kinds of spiritual connections and different ways that you're talking about for Solutions um to overcome some of those psychological resistances yes right to be able to either get it with a you know another member of the S and a friend or to get it into uh just a spirit guide or whatever and then in this case hopefully that'll help you work through some of these internal resistances and then your stuff will start to clarify for you yeah exactly we're a little long to do the defense mechanisms things maybe we'll just do that in the next one Daniel we'll do a quickie and just kind of cover it right sure yeah your reactions to that and that that seems like that would be going off in a different direction yeah yeah no this is I think this is this is this is this is great actually this was really great and I mean to give like just to talk about you and I haven't done this in a couple of weeks and it's we do that with one another to be honest you know we clarify yeah you know like think about these episodes and what we're going to talk about and it's very clarifying for me and then I hear your perspective back and we're doing that thing here it is in the flesh MRE Street for me Daniel thank you very much and you know I try to be him as much as I can that's that's the best version of myself yeah yeah you tried to do it we tried to do it in these things yep you do have a Vibe with mry you like mry that's my guy you know that's my guy yeah all right well Eric as always thank you so much for uh bringing bringing this up and and continuing the discussion uh we thank everybody for uh tuning in whether you're doing the audio or the video or you know wherever you're listening however you're listening we appreciate people tuning in uh I love all the things that we do but uh in particular I love this one that we did today this was this was good um I mean we always do good stuff but this was this overall was good this could stand on its own as something to be kept in the Time Capsule of good [...] you know cocktails uhuh yeah that's right that's right um and so you know as always age in the wine seller there you go yeah we'll put it in the uh what do they call that uh I guess a wine seller or some place I don't know whever they age wine I'm not a wine some other word for it but we're not classy enough to oh not a wiess sorry whyo that's right yeah um but you know anyways uh like comment subscribe share our work you know show us some love uh you know hit us up Jin and Tantra gmail.com or do it on the Instagram uh at the Jin and Tantra podcast for Eric this is Daniel Daniel before you do the total side out I'm yeah goe hold on I want to say one other thing because it's there's so much crisis in the world now and you know we were doing our pre-show and we hadn't talked in a couple of weeks and we were kind of both venting the [...] that bothers us and at the end you were kind of like well let's recall this [...] episode because this is getting too much of a Doner and then we recorded this episode right yeah and it feels a million times better I just wanted to like say this thing to spiritual things yeah supposed to getting dragged down we have to pay attention Okay but they get dragged down in just the samsaric crapola I just wanted to like it hit me as you were doing your outro like just the difference in that because now we're both smiling we're both happy you know we're both like we're both feeling good and in the beginning before we recorded this we were talking about the state of the world and we were both like you know so I just wanted to point it out maybe for people listening not to kill your flow on the outro in the very last line but just you know it's one of those things you can really just feel the difference this feels like a much more spiritually edifying conversation right I agree I agree and we're all wrestling with it so you know yeah yeah like it just when you really feel the feeling you're like okay let's get away from this stuff let's not get we can pay attention we can care but let's not get bugged down in it and we find the spiritual space and now we're both smiling and happy that's right that's right okay want it just hit me so I just want to share it yeah you got it man much love [Music]