A Conversation with Doug Scott, LCSW, and Brendan Graham Dempsey

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In this episode, we are joined by Doug Scott, LCSW, MA, an experienced therapist and counselor based in Dallas, Texas, who has a deep interest in the intersection of psychology and spirituality; and Brendan Graham Dempsey, a writer, poet, farmer, and the director of Sky Meadow Institute, an organization dedicated to promoting systems-based thinking about the things that matter most. (see below for more information on Brendan).

Doug shares insights from his private practice and his master’s degree in pastoral ministry, focusing particularly on how metamodern spirituality can facilitate positive change in the world.

Doug introduces the SH!PS Approach, a conceptual and practical framework designed to help individuals navigate their spiritual and psychological journeys. The acronym SH!PS stands for Solidarity, Hope, Interview, Process, and Service, with each component playing a crucial role in fostering meaningful transformation and connection.

The discussion explores Doug’s fascinating background, including his early years in Saudi Arabia, time in Nicaragua with the Capuchin Franciscans, and his education at Boston College. He also delves into the importance of relational connection, self-awareness, and the transformative power of loving service.

Tune in to learn more about Doug’s innovative tools and how they can be applied to enhance personal growth, build solidarity, and cultivate hope. Whether you’re interested in psychology, spirituality, or the intersections of the two, this episode offers valuable insights and practical advice for anyone looking to deepen their understanding and practice of metamodern spirituality.

For more information, you can visit Doug’s websites at www.dougscottcounseling.com and www.cosmicchrist.net 

From Brendan’s website: https://www.brendangrahamdempsey.com/bio

Brendan Graham Dempsey is a writer, poet, farmer, and the director of Sky Meadow Institute, an organization dedicated to promoting systems-based thinking about the things that matter most. 

He holds a BA in religious studies from the University of Vermont and a master’s in religion and art from Yale University. He is the author of the 7-volume Metamodern Spirituality Series and, most recently, Metamodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Cultural Logics.

His primary interests include theorizing developments in culture after postmodernism, productively bridging the divide between science and spirituality, and developing sustainable systems for life to flourish. All of these lead through the paradigms of emergence and complexity, which inform all of his work.

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Hi, everyone. Today, I’m joined by Doug Scott. Doug is an experienced therapist

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living in Dallas, Texas.

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He has a private counseling practice there and as well a master’s in pastoral ministry.

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He’s particularly interested in exploring a praxis that can help people in sort

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of the metamodern spirituality paradigm affect positive change in the world

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and has some really fascinating tools and kind of conceptual tools he’s developed in that vein.

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And Doug and I had the occasion to speak, I don’t know, gosh,

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a couple months ago, maybe now at this point.

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And it was a wonderful conversation and he was showing me his stuff.

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I thought this is really great. This would be helpful for people and it’d be

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good to get this out in the world.

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So we thought we’d do a podcast on it. But thanks, Doug, for coming on the podcast

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and sharing this stuff with us.

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Well, after this podcast, if I die, I will have been able to check this off of my…

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Coming on the Meta-Modern Spirituality with you. Yeah, well,

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I’m glad to hear that. But no, what you’ve done is certainly far more important

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than any podcast appearances.

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And so I’m glad we can use this as sort of a medium to put that out in the world.

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Maybe let’s just as a starter, yeah, like introduce yourself a little bit.

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So people have a little context of where you’re coming from,

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what your background is, and this sort of work that you’re interested in presenting

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to the world. Yes, sir. It sounds good.

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Well, thank you. I was born actually in Saudi Arabia and my parents lived there

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for seven years. I was there for four years.

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And then we moved to the Dallas area and I grew up in a rural town.

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Now it’s so expensive, we could never live there.

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But after undergrad, I went to Nicaragua for two years with the Capuchin Franciscans.

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I was discerning maybe a Franciscan priesthood, grew up Catholic.

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And if I could remove a little bit of my arch conservative apologetical season

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in my life, or let’s say incorporate it, it belongs.

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Integrate it. Integrate it. We’re going to integrate the heck out of that.

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But growing up, I was always attracted to the mystical streams,

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not just of Christianity or Catholicism, but,

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I was the kid, even in first grade, who would be attracted to things spiritual

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and always drawn to archetypal images in other religions.

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I had a UFO experience, actually, in first grade that was really powerful for me.

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And then right after that, it seemed like I started to have even more mystical

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encounters, numinous encounters with Mary, Mother Mary, and Jesus, and some of the saints.

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And that would be too young for schizophrenia, so I know it wasn’t that.

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But it was something that allowed me to feel that I had an important purpose,

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and there was a relational connection.

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I didn’t know how to define those things other than my faith of experience at

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that point, But there was a relational connection of some kind of transcendent subject to subject,

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transcendent I-thou with others as a part of a team, if you will.

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And then in Nicaragua, two years there, came back, went to Boston College for

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my graduate degrees, got married to somebody who was in medical school, my wife.

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And then we’ve moved back here and we’ve lived in the Dallas area.

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What were your graduate degrees?

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I was a dual master, so the credits cross-pollinated, so you could do two degrees in three years.

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Clinical social work, because I wanted to be a therapist, but the social work

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piece gives you training in locating people inside of a larger context,

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including the political, so I really valued that.

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And then the pastoral ministry piece was how to marry my two great interests

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in life, which is psychology and spirituality, and come together.

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So for those of your listeners who might be familiar with the likes of Richard

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Rohr, he would be a primary mentor of mine, a friend and mentor and somebody

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that I’ve steeped myself in.

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No longer maybe Roman Catholic, but Rohrian Catholic.

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Meaning so you you there was like a relationship there

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when some people say mentor very influenced by me it would signal that they

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read a lot of his books or something like that but you had a direct personal

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it’s both and yes and i’ll be on my way to homebrewed weekend whatever that

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is with the podcast i’ll be stopping by in albuquerque and spending a day with him so,

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very important for me. So I try to approach Christianity,

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I try to approach my vocation as a therapist and as a father and husband from

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this perspective of the transcendent and the imminent, a truly perennial position.

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And all of my delving into, let’s say, the esoteric things that attract me,

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along with the exoteric expressions, all of these things actually have helped

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me to become a more joyful Christian.

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It’s not that I’m throwing babies out with the bathwater, just fresh bathwater and a big old bath.

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You know, same baby. Gotcha. Yeah, well, and so that’s very fascinating stuff.

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I mean, there’s a million things we could dive into in all of your personal story.

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I mean, I think, though, the counseling and the social work aspect and the ministry

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aspect are probably the most germane to, I think what we’ll be getting into

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here, because when we had our conversation,

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you know, you were showing me some really fascinating kind of,

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yeah, conceptual tools or maps to engage folks in a way that’s kind of productive

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and builds connection and solidarity and these sorts of things.

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And I thought that that was valuable.

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So I think for people, if, you know, to the degree we’ll be getting into that,

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we’ll have a sense for, you know, where that’s coming from and kind of a background

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in psychology and in ministry and that sort of thing.

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But I’m also, you know, I’m sure that all the other aspects of your biography,

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you know, by all means, feel free to bring that into the mix and further contextualizing

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all this stuff. But yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

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So, well, no, so that’s helpful. So, and then, I mean, at this point,

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in terms of however you’d like to kind of put this stuff out there,

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I mean, I know you have some slides or something.

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Maybe you could start to share your screen and kind of dive into this setup,

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what this is, or however you’d like to introduce the models you’re talking Let

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me start by sharing the reason why I contacted you in the beginning.

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Because it is a praxis model that I want to talk about. And the way that I’ve

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come to understand any concepts or philosophy or theology or metaphysics is

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that if it doesn’t lead to some form of embodied loving service,

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then as helpful as it might be, it’s not fully, the fruit isn’t full.

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It’s not ripe. And so over the past 23 years,

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I have been working in the praxis area and trying to find how things like a

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universal Christianity or universal perennial tradition,

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how does that look like when I am walking together in life with my wife or with

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friends or with people, especially in today’s polarity?

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How can we actually steward some sense of unity and wholeness below the false

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self-fighting that happened?

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And then my question always became, this is the past actually five years,

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and then we’ll get into the slides.

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Right before I discovered your podcast, which actually led me to Matt’s work

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and then Andrew Davis, and I’ve taken a lot of, I’ve just dived right in into Whitehead.

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Matt Segal, you mean? Yes, yeah, sorry, Matt Segal, right.

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I began thinking about this question.

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It just kept percolating up and then slowly formed into the ship’s approach,

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which is what we’ll be talking about today.

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And that is, when somebody has come through counseling and then exited on the

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other side of that time, and they experience life at a more expansive level,

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particularly more joyful,

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able to handle tension more,

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the paradoxes, holding paradoxes together.

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And feel that their life has maybe an increased meaning, even if nothing external

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in their life has changed,

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their capacity to participate with some level of hope and joy,

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if that is increased, then my question was, are there patterns that could be

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common here to have led from entering into counseling and an exit?

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Likewise, if someone is interested in a particular faith tradition and works

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inside of that tradition and finds themselves,

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again, with a more expansive capacity to love the neighbor, love God,

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and love the self and pray for enemies, these things.

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If that’s the case and there’s transformation present, does it match the same

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patterns that I’m seeing in counseling?

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And finally, I would think that in my own life,

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how have I moved from where I might have been in a more rigid place as development

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unfolds naturally to where I’m at now and where I hope to be moving and becoming in the future.

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Does that also follow? And I think that there’s probably a million different

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kinds of ways to express this, but my best way to do it is what I’m going to be presenting today.

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And it’s not only something that I’m hoping helps people like yourself,

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myself, people who feel this call to have a legacy, help people love and serve more.

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Not only that, but the very thing that I’m using to help people is the thing

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that I’m teaching people to do in their life.

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Because I think this is how we feel less anxious and and less depressed and enjoy life more.

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So that’s why I wanted to connect with you because in this sense, it’s very meta-modern.

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And it’s extremely Christian, and it’s extremely Buddhist.

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I think, I hope, and this is my own privileged white male from Texas saying

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here, I’m hoping that this is perennial enough that people can see that it’s efficacious.

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And if it’s not, I hope we can discard it and then find something that works.

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Awesome. No, that’s great. That’s wonderful framing. And I mean,

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yeah, anytime Anytime one is looking for patterns, as you say,

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meaningful transformation across a wide data set, I guess you could say,

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right, different traditions,

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different contexts, looking for enduring patterns, I think, to the degree that

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one finds real things there,

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you’re going to stumble upon these sort of, you know, meta-level conceptual

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frameworks or axological frameworks that,

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you know, can help people actually in their lives, but also can,

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in a sense, help people make sense of also what is sort of the shared commonalities

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that exist between traditions and some of the shared transformational work that happens in counseling,

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but also in the spiritual life.

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And, you know, so a lot of cross-pollination there in interesting ways.

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And yeah, I think the looking, the search for patterns at that scale is definitely

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something that folks like you and I are interested in and people,

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you know, in kind of metatheoretical circles generally are

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too so no that’s that’s wonderful all right well then yeah

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by all means okay you know and jump it in go ahead and

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yeah share your screen and all right let me just press all right well i’m calling

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this the ship’s approach and what i’m going to be doing with you today if i

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can is i’ll introduce the different the acronyms and do a brief overview.

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So that if people are listening and they pick up the overview and the acronyms

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at first, and that’s all they get to, hopefully that’ll be enough.

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But if people want to move a little bit deeper in, that’s also room for you

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and I to continue a dialogue at the second half of this podcast.

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Does that sound okay? Sounds good. Okay.

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The SHIPS approach is a model that we can remember in the acronyms.

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But instead of starting with the S, I actually start with the I in the middle.

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So when I write down, when I’m writing down or typing out the SHIPS approach,

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I put the I as an exclamation point to draw attention that that’s where we always start.

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And it’s something that happens in between each of the other letters in the acronym.

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So it’s primary that we start with the I and the I stands for interview.

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It stands for interview and it can be understood as interview the way that you

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and I might interview for a job, But it also can be understood as inter-view

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in the sense of sharing views.

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So inter-faith is sharing faith, inter-view in that way.

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But if I could be a little clever here and think of inter-view as entering the

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view or the worldview or the viewpoint of the other.

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And I’m just going to say right off the bat, this skill is probably the hardest

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part because Because it requires a super decent amount of self-awareness to

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enter the view of the other,

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especially if I’m connecting with somebody that I have a shared history and

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it’s been a little bit hostile or the edges are pretty rough,

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you know, or entering the view of the other and somebody that I don’t know a

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lot about or have similar backgrounds to.

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I don’t think I’ll ever, I mean, of course, I’ll never know what it means to be you.

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I certainly don’t know what it means to be say a black female,

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but I do know what it means to be a human who is at some sense,

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both broken and whole, or.

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Made in the image of God in the fullness of that divinity. But my likeness of

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God is, is that true veil.

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It is that developmental stuff side. So I’m working to help my likeness match the, the image,

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you know, something like that, and it requires a lot of self awareness because

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ultimately it’s not that ultimately one sees themself as an agent or Stewart of wholeness.

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You see, so it’s no longer I’m learning so much as who am I and what’s my purpose.

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It’s almost as if, if I could put it in this way, one achieves some level of

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enlightenment or whatever.

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I’m not saying I’m enlightened. I’m just saying the big tasks of who am I are

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resolved enough to say, well, who I am is somebody who desires to be a channel or an instrument.

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Of love and wholeness.

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And so it’s with that energy, almost like putting on the mind of Christ,

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as the Apostle Paul would say.

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Or another way to say it is, no longer I, but Christ who lives within me.

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Some sense of a wholeness speaking through me and connecting to other elements

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of this wholeness and helping them achieve some gnosis of wholeness in their life.

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I’m just going to stop there and ask you if that makes sense or resonates.

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Yeah, definitely. I also, So, yeah, I’ve just been kind of taking the role of the audience here.

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I’m also not sure if with the slides being shown, if my video will appear at

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all. So I’m sort of a disembodied voice potentially.

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But yes, no, very much so.

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To the degree that, let’s say, self-reflection and self-awareness are crucial

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aspects of sort of developmental expansion and insight.

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I think that that’s entirely fitting with my experience and a lot of the stuff

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that I’ve been reading about in that field as well.

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And I think that the meaningful connection that you’re drawing with the spiritual

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tradition, at least of Christianity specifically, but also others,

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I would presume, that’s also a key aspect as well of being able to,

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you know, relate to the other in a meaningful way.

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That, you know, of course, the ethical language of the traditions that,

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you know, can be framed in very different terms, but I think is all getting

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at sort of the same thing.

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And in some ways, kind of what Kant was talking about of taking people as ends

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rather than means, and also being able to kind of see the world from their eyes,

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and the necessity, the importance of being able to consider the other in terms of the self and all that.

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I mean, I could go ramble on, but the point is, yeah, totally.

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It’s on track. You are speaking my language more eloquently though, of course.

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I would say that I don’t think transformation happens any other way.

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And I see a lot of people in my office, as I said, I’ve been a counselor for 23 years.

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I shaved off my beard, but it’s real white.

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Usually that gives me a lot of cred to let them know that he’s been around.

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But I would say that That when I have seen 60-year-olds, 50-year-olds in my

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office who have achieved a fairly decent high level of success in our society,

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are esteemed in business or so forth, you know, struggling, yes,

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in maybe their emotional life or mental health.

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But when I am able to discern their sense of the imago die, the image of God,

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you know, the operational theology,

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I’m often surprised that there’s not a lot of development there.

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That a lot of us are still operating from what might be seen as a Zeus figure in the sky.

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Which is interesting because if you take Dios, God in Spanish,

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or Deus, God in Portuguese, Deus, for example, is basically Zeus,

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but just remove the D and put the Z.

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It’s infiltrated our culture so much that it’s hard not to see God as an old

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man with a beard, the Santa Claus figure, you know?

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And a lot of people are operating from a theology that doesn’t have a very good anthropology.

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You know, humans are sinful beings.

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It’s completely and totally fallen. That this creation, by implication, therefore, is fallen.

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Not good, even though in Genesis, it is good, it is good, it is good.

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And so what I’m thinking here is, when people transform from an earlier stage

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spiritual operational theology,

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when people transform from that, Matt, it will never be concepts,

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maybe unless you’re a five on the Enneagram. I’m just joking.

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It’ll likely not be concepts or theological frameworks that bring people into

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something else. It’s going to be relationship.

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It’s going to be, am I well met by somebody else?

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And can I feel okay in being vulnerable,

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being myself that doesn’t have it all together other in that person’s presence

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because they see the anchored self inside of me instead of the floating self

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that’s just on the surface trying to dance my little dance, you know?

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It’s those kinds of people. I don’t care how smart they are or what kind of

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degree they have, doesn’t matter.

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If they’ve done their work in whatever way, then you know you’re in the presence

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of an expanded grounded person when you feel inside your own gut.

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And this is something you feel in body. You feel in your body an okayness.

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And that is what I’m after in the ship’s approach.

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Can we be that for people? So I is interview.

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We’re going to move right into, if you’re listening, picture the I as a mast

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on a ship. So it’s really tall and there’s a ship.

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And without the mast, of course, We don’t move in the water. There’s no sail.

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So the mass is very important, and it’s connecting now, if you’re imagining

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it, to the S in ships. It’s connected to the first letter.

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And this is to enter into solidarity.

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And it’s so important to enter the view of the other, the worldview,

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and then getting a sense of entering into the solidarity of the other.

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That, and this is how I sort of see it in my own head, is that my goal is after

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my encounter with somebody, and that could be five minutes in Walmart at the cashier.

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It could be five minutes at Starbucks, doesn’t matter. Or it could be five years

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with a client in counseling.

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Can that person, when they leave our engagement, can that person feel that they were seen?

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Even if they thought Doug is crazy as a loon, or I disagree,

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or he misses a lot of points, could it be that that person feels that,

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but my God, I felt connected.

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Even if that remains on the subconscious or unconscious level,

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you see, solidarity is the sense that we’re all in it together. other.

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It’s an accompaniment. Pope Francis’s big legacy, I think, that he will leave

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is this sense of walking together, accompanying each other, pilgrims on the road.

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And I think Ram Dass, what did he say?

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We’re all walking each other home.

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And feel free, Brendan, if

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you are familiar with other faith traditions that

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have similar kinds of notions of of

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it all being one body members of this one body and being actively connected

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to each member that’s that spirit of solidarity so if you can well i mean for

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me i think of the bodhisattva in the in the mahayana buddhist tradition you

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know someone who doesn’t look at enlightenment as something for themselves selves alone,

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but in a sense isn’t really achieved unless everyone achieves it.

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And so even though they, through their own capacities, might be able to,

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in their kind of mythos, you know, leave samsara and sort of check out of the

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system, it’s sort of, they choose to come back to help others out of solidarity or humanity,

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because as long as there’s suffering in the world, they don’t feel like it is

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the right thing to sort of leave people behind, as it were.

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That’s how I interpret sort of bodhisattva vow in the Buddhist Mahayana tradition.

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So that’s just one example that comes to mind. I couldn’t agree more.

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That’s often one that I use as well.

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And let me just say as a side note too, one of the things that I have seen a

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lot, especially in new age circles,

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is this sense, and maybe some Western people are trying to understand Buddhism,

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but from a pretty Western perspective.

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Is the sense of just trying to reach nirvana, as you say, trying to reach the

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end and check out. In other words, to ascend beyond all of it.

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And I don’t know how not to see this. And it could be that I’m just not very

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advanced in my own thinking.

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But it feels like, okay, once you’ve enlightened, then if you’re going to be

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enlightened in one with all, that quote, but one with all is that which becomes. So get busy becoming.

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In other words, reenter the fray this time as both the thou and the I, you know, I am that.

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It’s be that intentional channel that comes in and moves and shakes.

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That’s solidarity, yeah. So the path upwards to ascend is actually to incarnate more.

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Okay, well, once we’ve connected and entered into the view of somebody else,

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and there’s a sense of shared humanity, not that it is messy,

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but that messiness is precisely how love becomes.

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And the very harmony of material existence, I think it’s composed of a lot of asymmetry.

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It’s that balancing the three and the four and the three and the four,

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and the whole thing is one, that’s the circle.

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Just as a side note, I’m always picturing vision, geometry, sacred geometry

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in my head. I think it’s a neurosis or synesthesia.

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I’m not sure, but I’m always seeing a dance between.

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A square of stability and harmony,

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and then that’s broken open by a sacred triangle that breaks it open.

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And all of this is inside of a big torus, like a sphere that just keeps rotating and moving.

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So everything is contained in one unity, one expanding sense of becoming.

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But inside of that, it’s this dance of perichoresis, you know,

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of the square, the harmony and then the beauty of the moving into asymmetry you know what i mean.

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Well yeah i mean let me see wait real quick i’m gonna see if i can there we

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go yeah i didn’t want to be as disembodied voice so oh yeah because this is

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about embodiment good job yeah well,

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yeah yeah no images like that can be helpful for sure i you know i have some particular,

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kind of visualizations that that speak to me but

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i think you know holding holding those things as helpful

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kind of guides for thinking about these sorts

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of processes can can be valuable but there’s there

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are multiple sacred geometries and i think they

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all kind of reveal or emphasize certain aspects

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of of you know reality in different ways that

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can be helpful so i i try not to like you know overly prioritize

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or essentialize or reify any any one of those

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but but work with them as sort of helpful mnemonics or

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tools or something on the other hand it seems to

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me that they’re especially people that that you talk to and people that i would

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trust and honor that they’re doing some really good metaphysics is that there

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seems to be an asymmetry is a part of a greater symmetry and all of them are

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connected inside of a whole i wonder if that’s perennial what do you think?

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That’s interesting. I mean, so when I think sacred geometry is a couple come

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to mind, you know, there’s the Kabbalah tree of life.

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There’s the, you know, the seed of life and the whole kind of circles that become

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the different, you know, configurations that build on top of each other.

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Then there’s neodymium platonic, you know, kinds of frames.

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And then for me personally, a lot of fractal geometry and kind of Mendelbrot set,

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that sort of stuff and stuff that comes out of chaos theory is

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for me kind of the most attractive sort of sacred geometry

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personally but then you get cymatic so anyway there’s

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a there’s a lot of different kinds oh i mean i mean and by neoplatonic

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there’s the original platonic you know sacred geometry which

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goes back to the pythagoreans and so so there’s a

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lot of diversity there but i mean i i would say yeah there’s

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a sense of let’s say i definitely get a sense that there’s an integration going

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on across these systems of parts into greater holes that seems to be a kind

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of universal theme and I’m gonna insert I’m gonna go right there because where you’re at right there.

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Okay, great. So let’s just jump in. I knew I was making a brilliant segue with

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my reference to sacred geometry.

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You and I are surfing on the same wavelength.

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It’s way below the regular ocean, you know, hidden. Okay.

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The way I’m understanding hope here is actually informed by the law of three.

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Gurdjieff talks about the law of three, and I’ve written about the law of three

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as well. well, I think it’s the very energy and the thrust behind eternal becoming.

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And what I mean by the law of three, some traditional names is the affirming

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force, the denying force, and the reconciling force.

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That there’s always a contrast, which sometimes we would interpret as a conflict,

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but there’s a contrast, and in that tension is the beginning of,

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the beginning of, or the birth of of some kind of reconciliation that takes us,

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into a new order, a higher state, yeah.

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But I’ve changed the words a little bit because it’s a neurosis of mine for

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sure is how to make this teachable.

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And so I’m trying to, instead of saying affirming force, denying force,

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I was wondering if status quo force, status quo force, that which is current.

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And then we have the contrasting force.

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Which together create a contrast. So something that stops the status quo.

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I will say status quo force is a terrible name for like a superhero band.

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Yeah. Like we are a status quo force. But no, I like that.

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Or, you know, it could be like great band. And then the subtitle is changing

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the world by our humility.

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I don’t know.

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I’m going to write a book. You and I should write a book about how to change

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the world. I think we should start a children’s television show personally.

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00:30:33.002 –> 00:30:39.262
But no. Yeah, good. We could riff. Okay. So hope is something that a SHIPS practitioner

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is really going to look to do. Here’s why.

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The world, I’m assuming you, need hope.

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We can live without a lot of things. But when I hear people talk about meaning

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and purpose, crisis, of all of those things and all of that, I agree.

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And I think the way that we might traditionally, the term would be,

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we need hope. Hope for something.

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Hope that that something more beautiful or something more whole that is lurking

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in the future is also present right now.

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00:31:17.002 –> 00:31:22.002
So this is where I want to go with because there’s a specific kind of way that

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00:31:22.002 –> 00:31:25.462
really works to help people cultivate,

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00:31:25.622 –> 00:31:29.562
we as ship practitioners, cultivating hope in somebody else because the seeds

406
00:31:29.562 –> 00:31:32.262
of hope are in every person,

407
00:31:32.362 –> 00:31:38.462
in my opinion, and at every crisis they may feel or every moment of contrast

408
00:31:38.462 –> 00:31:42.202
where you have the status quo force and the contrasting force.

409
00:31:42.202 –> 00:31:48.002
That tension that starts to build there, there’s always going to be the seeds

410
00:31:48.002 –> 00:31:50.762
of hope right there in the soil of that crux.

411
00:31:50.942 –> 00:31:55.782
Yeah. And I can just say it as maybe even as a metaphysical truth,

412
00:31:55.942 –> 00:31:58.662
try it out for yourself, even when you feel like there’s no hope.

413
00:31:59.402 –> 00:32:04.462
When somebody says that, I often ask them, I have a Harry Potter magic wand in my office.

414
00:32:04.502 –> 00:32:08.742
So I said, don’t make me bring out my wand but i say you

415
00:32:08.742 –> 00:32:11.402
didn’t mention you didn’t mention wizardry as a

416
00:32:11.402 –> 00:32:14.082
as one of your prior let me tell

417
00:32:14.082 –> 00:32:18.522
you something there’s an esoteric stream which is most of my life that people

418
00:32:18.522 –> 00:32:22.702
would i got fired from the university of dallas a very catholic conservative

419
00:32:22.702 –> 00:32:29.382
school because they found my blog where i explore things like aliens and magic

420
00:32:29.382 –> 00:32:32.042
and all of this stuff interesting yeah Yeah,

421
00:32:32.042 –> 00:32:34.322
so maybe another time we can move in this.

422
00:32:34.442 –> 00:32:38.042
But it doesn’t matter if we can’t incarnate that, so that’s what SHIB is about,

423
00:32:38.202 –> 00:32:40.762
being Gandalf to others.

424
00:32:41.182 –> 00:32:43.862
And the hope is this.

425
00:32:44.662 –> 00:32:50.122
When I ask people, when I’m in solidarity and I can affirm where they’re at,

426
00:32:50.202 –> 00:32:52.502
and it’s difficult situations perhaps, you know,

427
00:32:53.242 –> 00:33:00.062
I ask people, if you could imagine what it would look like in maybe a month or two months where…

428
00:33:01.312 –> 00:33:05.832
The highest and greatest result, like if you were to pick a path,

429
00:33:06.072 –> 00:33:11.412
walk down that, and it would result in something that maybe you can’t imagine,

430
00:33:11.472 –> 00:33:18.172
but it could feel like a respite or you can feel a sense of okay,

431
00:33:18.552 –> 00:33:24.392
well-being, peace, then what might that look like?

432
00:33:24.572 –> 00:33:28.752
So I’m asking these questions, opening the questions, and here’s something I

433
00:33:28.752 –> 00:33:34.452
just want want to put in right here for those of us who might be visual is exactly

434
00:33:34.452 –> 00:33:36.812
right there when I say what it might look like.

435
00:33:36.872 –> 00:33:43.412
They may not be able to imagine that, the imagery of what a future goodness

436
00:33:43.412 –> 00:33:50.032
would look like or future experience of joy, but I guarantee you nine out of 10 times,

437
00:33:50.652 –> 00:33:53.272
they can imagine what color it would be.

438
00:33:53.352 –> 00:33:56.712
I know that sounds weird, but whenever I ask someone,

439
00:33:56.712 –> 00:33:59.452
one i say okay you can’t picture it but i’m going to ask you

440
00:33:59.452 –> 00:34:02.572
right now feel into that and if

441
00:34:02.572 –> 00:34:05.752
you could put a color to what that experience

442
00:34:05.752 –> 00:34:09.952
of wholeness or joy or whatever looks like in the future what color would that

443
00:34:09.952 –> 00:34:15.352
be and what color are you at right now are you asking me no no i’m not i’m just

444
00:34:15.352 –> 00:34:21.292
i’m just okay rhetorical rhetorical uh-huh and what’s so strange and maybe perhaps

445
00:34:21.292 –> 00:34:22.832
perhaps not strange for people who,

446
00:34:22.852 –> 00:34:27.172
who work in these kind of energetic realms is that.

447
00:34:28.409 –> 00:34:34.769
I have extraordinarily conservative Christians and extraordinarily crazy new

448
00:34:34.769 –> 00:34:36.929
agey people and atheists and all

449
00:34:36.929 –> 00:34:40.809
of that, that whenever I ask them to move into the realms of the color,

450
00:34:40.949 –> 00:34:45.889
they match some perennial,

451
00:34:46.089 –> 00:34:50.489
some magical traditions that I am familiar with in terms of,

452
00:34:50.489 –> 00:34:53.889
you know, red might mean this and golden might mean that.

453
00:34:53.889 –> 00:35:00.109
It is uncanny because there’s something metamodern or something perennial that’s happening there.

454
00:35:00.409 –> 00:35:05.589
People are, if I could be a little esoteric, people are tapping into subtle realms.

455
00:35:06.189 –> 00:35:10.429
And mostly they might even say they don’t believe in subtle realms, you know?

456
00:35:11.029 –> 00:35:15.769
Maybe they think that’s heretical, astral realms or something like that.

457
00:35:15.829 –> 00:35:16.789
But if I can get them to imagine.

458
00:35:17.009 –> 00:35:21.649
To be the resident critic, I suppose, as well, critique or skeptic,

459
00:35:21.649 –> 00:35:23.969
which I think is always valuable to throw it in. there.

460
00:35:24.029 –> 00:35:31.349
I mean, I don’t think anything is detracted per se from the significance of

461
00:35:31.349 –> 00:35:35.749
these sorts of things if we also just appreciate that people might have psychological

462
00:35:35.749 –> 00:35:41.649
associations based on experience that hold true across different contexts and different cultures.

463
00:35:42.209 –> 00:35:50.229
Fire is hot, and red and orange will remind people of fire, and so energy.

464
00:35:50.589 –> 00:35:53.889
And so you can imagine a whole number of semantic associations that go on.

465
00:35:54.069 –> 00:35:58.629
And so, you know, if someone thinks about where they are, where they’d like

466
00:35:58.629 –> 00:36:02.149
to be, I mean, they’ve done cross-cultural studies around like mood and color

467
00:36:02.149 –> 00:36:05.569
and, you know, the cool tones versus hot tones, all this.

468
00:36:06.740 –> 00:36:09.300
I don’t know. I’m very comfortable being like, oh, there are some interesting

469
00:36:09.300 –> 00:36:13.980
and important cross-cultural similarities that might come across from other

470
00:36:13.980 –> 00:36:17.580
kinds of abstractions that we do with our minds and the world’s based on our

471
00:36:17.580 –> 00:36:21.480
experience without necessarily jumping to subtle realms.

472
00:36:21.640 –> 00:36:24.860
I’m really glad you picked that up because I’m going to admit that I have a

473
00:36:24.860 –> 00:36:27.420
bias. I have chosen a certain kind of delusion.

474
00:36:27.940 –> 00:36:34.020
And this delusion helps me to be more loving to myself and more more loving

475
00:36:34.020 –> 00:36:38.220
to others and appreciating the ingratitude, even times of sorrow.

476
00:36:38.500 –> 00:36:41.400
So I’m putting, I’m smoking that all the time.

477
00:36:41.520 –> 00:36:45.840
Okay. Yeah. Well then that sounds very metamodern. I mean, if there’s a mythos

478
00:36:45.840 –> 00:36:49.700
that enhances your flourishing and the people around you, then I think that

479
00:36:49.700 –> 00:36:54.980
there’s, and by mythos, again, I don’t want to say for me, that does not connote all falsity per se.

480
00:36:55.060 –> 00:36:59.800
It’s just a mythos is the, the, the whole set of, uh, imaginal,

481
00:36:59.840 –> 00:37:05.240
you know, and, and praxis based sort of, I don’t know, engagements that we do

482
00:37:05.240 –> 00:37:08.980
as people that, that bring in the meaning in a rich way into our lives.

483
00:37:09.060 –> 00:37:12.640
And, you know, there’s, there’s all sorts of ways in which trying to be overly

484
00:37:12.640 –> 00:37:17.980
literal or historical or, you know, scientific about things can, can detract from that.

485
00:37:18.040 –> 00:37:22.620
And I think that that’s, yeah, that’s not, that shouldn’t be the point of the,

486
00:37:22.640 –> 00:37:25.460
of the move of trying to question and critique,

487
00:37:25.600 –> 00:37:28.700
but, but the awareness, again, going back to that self-awareness bit,

488
00:37:28.780 –> 00:37:30.220
I think is, is valuable to like,

489
00:37:30.340 –> 00:37:33.400
there’s also a difference, I think, in an important one between folks

490
00:37:33.400 –> 00:37:36.760
who see that they are engaged in

491
00:37:36.760 –> 00:37:39.600
a mythos and doing so intentionally for the sake of enhancing

492
00:37:39.600 –> 00:37:42.940
flourishing rather than just assuming the mythos

493
00:37:42.940 –> 00:37:46.120
to be the background reality that is there because if you

494
00:37:46.120 –> 00:37:51.020
engage that differently you’re going to actually often you know detract from

495
00:37:51.020 –> 00:37:55.340
the flourishing if if people think that their mythos is is right and it is the

496
00:37:55.340 –> 00:37:58.600
mythos for everyone then every encounter is about trying to prove this and this

497
00:37:58.600 –> 00:38:02.120
sort of thing you can imagine Imagine that that’s the kind of rigidity you were

498
00:38:02.120 –> 00:38:05.740
talking about trying to move beyond and some of that developmental stuff earlier.

499
00:38:05.920 –> 00:38:09.380
And so I think, yeah, being aware of the kinds of relationships that we have

500
00:38:09.380 –> 00:38:12.780
to these things is always an important aspect of the kind of metamodern approach.

501
00:38:13.040 –> 00:38:17.920
And I think we should probably try to have one relationship with something transcendent.

502
00:38:18.120 –> 00:38:24.280
I don’t really care what it is. Always my metric is if someone just discovered,

503
00:38:24.420 –> 00:38:26.220
you know, trad Catholicism, which

504
00:38:26.220 –> 00:38:30.580
a lot of people are doing right now or discovered the law of one material,

505
00:38:30.920 –> 00:38:35.480
I don’t care because, I mean, it’s great for you, but here’s always the metric

506
00:38:35.480 –> 00:38:42.780
I come back is, how is this helping me or you love and accept and understand yourself,

507
00:38:43.180 –> 00:38:47.440
understand others, loving service, and praying for our enemies?

508
00:38:48.000 –> 00:38:51.280
It’s almost that simple. It’s not easy, but it is almost that simple.

509
00:38:51.380 –> 00:38:53.320
That is a universal metric, isn’t it?

510
00:38:54.380 –> 00:38:57.440
Okay. Well, hope is right there.

511
00:38:57.480 –> 00:39:01.940
What we do is we want to enter into what helps that person feel hope.

512
00:39:02.340 –> 00:39:05.680
And I’m going to offer this to people right now is…

513
00:39:06.489 –> 00:39:13.129
A lot of us have at least three bedrock values that we live in,

514
00:39:13.189 –> 00:39:19.149
first principles, but we often are not consciously aware of these things.

515
00:39:19.229 –> 00:39:20.569
They hang out in the subconscious.

516
00:39:20.829 –> 00:39:23.449
If there’s an iceberg, it’s right below the water.

517
00:39:24.829 –> 00:39:29.189
I’ll give you an example. I know my dad will never listen to this.

518
00:39:29.609 –> 00:39:32.809
I love my dad. We have a great relationship, so I don’t mind sharing this.

519
00:39:32.809 –> 00:39:37.869
And I’ve told him before, I’ve shared some of these things with people. And he’s like, okay.

520
00:39:40.489 –> 00:39:46.049
When he and I had a conversation about a couple of months ago, he’s 75.

521
00:39:47.489 –> 00:39:53.049
And I wanted to try the ship’s approach with him to develop this common bond.

522
00:39:53.109 –> 00:39:55.489
We already have a common bond, but to make it articulated.

523
00:39:56.329 –> 00:40:00.869
He and I see things very, very differently politically. Our worldviews are very different.

524
00:40:00.869 –> 00:40:04.889
Yet there’s a common bond and that’s what i think the ship’s approach is trying

525
00:40:04.889 –> 00:40:12.109
to do is get underneath and connect and so i told him in in different ways but

526
00:40:12.109 –> 00:40:16.509
i said you know basically dad i i think at this point i have a post-doctorate

527
00:40:16.509 –> 00:40:19.269
level of what you are against.

528
00:40:21.909 –> 00:40:26.629
And maybe maybe i’m that way too or other people is that we’re really quick

529
00:40:26.629 –> 00:40:31.949
to share with others, well, it could have been better, or darn those people,

530
00:40:32.169 –> 00:40:34.349
you know, they’re not doing this or that.

531
00:40:34.749 –> 00:40:39.269
We’re really quick to be able to articulate what we’re against.

532
00:40:40.149 –> 00:40:47.769
But that presupposes, I think, that there is something there that we’re for. What are we for?

533
00:40:48.349 –> 00:40:52.989
Because if we didn’t have that to begin with, then we wouldn’t know what to be against.

534
00:40:52.989 –> 00:40:59.069
Convinced, even though we’re really quick to share that, I’m hoping that we

535
00:40:59.069 –> 00:41:05.349
can start to become more, have readier access to that which we’re for.

536
00:41:05.529 –> 00:41:06.769
What’s our sacred yes first?

537
00:41:07.029 –> 00:41:09.049
And then we can talk about the sacred no.

538
00:41:09.629 –> 00:41:18.209
So part of the hope piece is to help people to find and articulate their values

539
00:41:18.209 –> 00:41:23.029
and I always pick three because I mean there might be more but usually there’s

540
00:41:23.029 –> 00:41:24.029
going to be something like that.

541
00:41:24.998 –> 00:41:28.558
And the way I often do it is, if you were

542
00:41:28.558 –> 00:41:31.518
to die and you were at your funeral and you had some

543
00:41:31.518 –> 00:41:38.218
capacity to hear and listen to a group of your loved ones that are gathered

544
00:41:38.218 –> 00:41:42.738
and they’re talking about how much they loved you and how much you meant to

545
00:41:42.738 –> 00:41:46.798
them and how they’re trying to live out certain things about you in their own

546
00:41:46.798 –> 00:41:48.798
life, and they’re only saying good things,

547
00:41:48.998 –> 00:41:54.378
what would be three things that you really hope that they say about you?

548
00:41:54.998 –> 00:42:00.638
And here’s the coolest thing, is when we can identify in ourselves,

549
00:42:00.918 –> 00:42:05.178
but also help somebody else who might have lived for 75 years,

550
00:42:05.318 –> 00:42:10.978
never once articulating what they’re for, we’ll find that they struggle.

551
00:42:11.158 –> 00:42:12.538
We struggle to find that.

552
00:42:13.058 –> 00:42:20.238
But then when we find it, all of a sudden, it’s like a fountain that was clogged up is now opened.

553
00:42:20.238 –> 00:42:24.718
And there’s a gushing that happens because when those three principles rise

554
00:42:24.718 –> 00:42:27.338
to the surface of consciousness,

555
00:42:27.738 –> 00:42:35.118
then all of a sudden we have a capacity to measure and see our behavior that

556
00:42:35.118 –> 00:42:37.218
we’re trying to be conscious of our behavior.

557
00:42:37.218 –> 00:42:44.698
How does that fall in congruence with or what kind of incongruity is present

558
00:42:44.698 –> 00:42:48.118
between our values and our chosen behavior?

559
00:42:48.538 –> 00:42:53.998
Because I would argue that experiencing joy in the present moment,

560
00:42:54.098 –> 00:42:55.758
but maybe a future experience of

561
00:42:55.758 –> 00:43:01.938
joy, is going to be connected to an inner integration and inner integrity,

562
00:43:02.098 –> 00:43:05.978
where our values and our behavior are matching.

563
00:43:06.438 –> 00:43:09.778
Yeah, it just leads to peace and tranquility. What do you think about that?

564
00:43:11.658 –> 00:43:16.658
Yeah, no, that resonates. I mean, I don’t know.

565
00:43:16.738 –> 00:43:25.418
I think there’s a lot in this kind of framework that I think it helps simplify things.

566
00:43:25.418 –> 00:43:30.298
It helps kind of foreground, you know, some of the, as you say,

567
00:43:30.398 –> 00:43:34.418
like there’s all this language we could use around these things that would be, you know. Oh, yeah.

568
00:43:34.458 –> 00:43:36.918
I’m not at all precise in my definitions.

569
00:43:37.138 –> 00:43:39.698
I know that drives people crazy. No, but I think it’s good. I think it makes

570
00:43:39.698 –> 00:43:44.978
it a good tool to be able to, you know, present this stuff to people in a way

571
00:43:44.978 –> 00:43:47.578
that’s much more accessible because it’s not, you know.

572
00:43:47.578 –> 00:43:53.818
But so some of my thinking around this probably tends towards hyper-complexifying

573
00:43:53.818 –> 00:43:55.158
things into too many variables.

574
00:43:55.418 –> 00:43:58.998
But I think this is a – yeah. So anyway, that’s just – Well,

575
00:43:59.038 –> 00:44:00.898
can we do this with you really quick?

576
00:44:01.058 –> 00:44:05.058
Sure. Not the full dying and rising – we’re not going to make a Jesus just yet.

577
00:44:05.158 –> 00:44:09.878
But you just said complexifying, and I know that that is a talent of yours.

578
00:44:11.018 –> 00:44:18.418
I think so. So, I mean, I think your gift is to help clarify through seeing

579
00:44:18.418 –> 00:44:22.858
the complexification, honoring the complexification of the whole, you know?

580
00:44:24.404 –> 00:44:27.804
But I don’t think that’s a bedrock value. If you could go a little bit deeper,

581
00:44:27.984 –> 00:44:31.704
the tendency is to complexify and look at that.

582
00:44:31.784 –> 00:44:39.044
But what might be something that’s, or it births this desire to understand the

583
00:44:39.044 –> 00:44:40.904
complexity? Where is that coming from, do you think?

584
00:44:41.364 –> 00:44:48.444
Yeah. Well, you know, I think we share that sense of looking for the deep patterns of things.

585
00:44:48.444 –> 00:44:55.344
And i guess if you were to try to track that down into its core i think there’s a desire,

586
00:44:56.384 –> 00:44:59.904
the desire certainly for intelligibility but to

587
00:44:59.904 –> 00:45:06.004
what purpose why why yeah i mean ultimately for me all this aims at human like

588
00:45:06.004 –> 00:45:10.824
of flourishing yes you know which is which is but then it’s like okay well what

589
00:45:10.824 –> 00:45:15.044
does one mean by that and it’s well i think most people would understand flourishing

590
00:45:15.044 –> 00:45:18.364
We don’t have to be too gritty, nitty gritty here,

591
00:45:18.444 –> 00:45:21.104
but what I want to know is flourishing, but why?

592
00:45:21.804 –> 00:45:24.764
Why would we want people, why would, do you want to flourish?

593
00:45:24.884 –> 00:45:26.604
Why do you want to help people flourish? Why?

594
00:45:27.864 –> 00:45:32.604
Yeah, well, I recently wrote kind of a book on that, I guess, to some degree.

595
00:45:33.084 –> 00:45:35.984
You would, you would write a whole book about something. Well,

596
00:45:36.004 –> 00:45:40.124
I mean, because I do, like, when you get down to first principles and you try

597
00:45:40.124 –> 00:45:44.144
to be like, well, why, why, why? and you can kind of ask the two-year-old question

598
00:45:44.144 –> 00:45:48.064
of, okay, but why is the sky blue? That sort of thing, which is good.

599
00:45:48.184 –> 00:45:52.044
Those are the kinds of questions that should be asked. They kind of do bottom out somewhere.

600
00:45:53.724 –> 00:45:57.464
And some people, again, will find where that bottoms out really compelling and

601
00:45:57.464 –> 00:46:01.124
really fascinating because it speaks to a certain almost kind of,

602
00:46:01.164 –> 00:46:04.204
yeah, that makes total sense. It kind of couldn’t be otherwise.

603
00:46:04.544 –> 00:46:08.744
And that’s kind of assuring and affirming. Other people might hear it and it

604
00:46:08.744 –> 00:46:15.984
seems maybe a bit dry or it’s lost touch with some of the more kind of emotional,

605
00:46:16.964 –> 00:46:20.824
feeling-oriented sort of thing. But I would say something like.

606
00:46:21.811 –> 00:46:27.631
If I don’t value my own flourishing, I will cease to be.

607
00:46:28.091 –> 00:46:35.031
And then if I cease to be, there’s not going to be things like me around that are valuing things.

608
00:46:35.511 –> 00:46:40.251
So there’s a kind of evolutionary accounting for the fact that the things that

609
00:46:40.251 –> 00:46:44.071
we do see that do exist are things that value, that have values.

610
00:46:44.311 –> 00:46:49.231
By virtue of being in the world, you have to have some values because if you

611
00:46:49.231 –> 00:46:51.291
don’t, then you won’t be in the world.

612
00:46:51.291 –> 00:46:55.571
And so there’s kind of a, you could almost say like the very forces of cosmic

613
00:46:55.571 –> 00:46:58.551
evolution sort of select for meaning and value in that sense,

614
00:46:58.691 –> 00:47:01.771
not in some, not in some, well, certainly profound,

615
00:47:01.931 –> 00:47:06.431
but not in some totalizing way that all that meaning and value is going to be

616
00:47:06.431 –> 00:47:08.051
the same everywhere all at once.

617
00:47:08.051 –> 00:47:11.091
The meaning for the tree and for me and you know

618
00:47:11.091 –> 00:47:14.031
for for an animal are going to be different kinds of meanings but

619
00:47:14.031 –> 00:47:18.011
they all share the same impetus to to want

620
00:47:18.011 –> 00:47:22.551
to what to want to continue to want to then not just continue but to expand

621
00:47:22.551 –> 00:47:27.631
to thrive to flourish and so and then as that process itself complexifies you

622
00:47:27.631 –> 00:47:32.611
find yourself embedded in networks of other entities doing likewise and so your

623
00:47:32.611 –> 00:47:37.751
Your flourishing depends on bears and is intertwined with it and so on and so forth.

624
00:47:37.911 –> 00:47:42.291
So anyway, that’s… Well, let me… Okay, everything you just said is…

625
00:47:42.951 –> 00:47:49.291
I’m seeing it almost as a beautiful river, but you started out this beautiful river with a statement.

626
00:47:49.511 –> 00:47:53.831
I’m not sure if you remember it. It was a statement that was couched in negative.

627
00:47:54.151 –> 00:47:57.751
So I wanted… It was a sacred no. So I’m going to try to see what the sacred

628
00:47:57.751 –> 00:47:58.971
yes is. And that was this. Yes.

629
00:47:59.231 –> 00:48:03.731
If I don’t value things, I cease to be.

630
00:48:04.671 –> 00:48:09.431
That was sort of like the fount coming out of the ground and then it just expands

631
00:48:09.431 –> 00:48:10.971
into all the ways that you just shared.

632
00:48:11.091 –> 00:48:16.431
So I’m interested in right there, if I don’t value, I cease to be.

633
00:48:16.891 –> 00:48:21.711
Then I’m starting to think, okay, of course, we could talk about what value

634
00:48:21.711 –> 00:48:24.031
means. We could talk about what be means.

635
00:48:24.771 –> 00:48:27.491
But if I’m going below and this is

636
00:48:27.491 –> 00:48:30.271
where in solidarity because i’m going i know

637
00:48:30.271 –> 00:48:34.251
i’m in hope but i’m going to go try to back to you’re always doing it’s not

638
00:48:34.251 –> 00:48:37.451
that when you get to one then you go to two it’s when you get to two you’re

639
00:48:37.451 –> 00:48:40.871
doing one two and when you get to three you’re doing one two three always you

640
00:48:40.871 –> 00:48:47.691
know what i mean yeah so in solidarity then i’m gonna ask you right now is could.

641
00:48:49.025 –> 00:48:56.925
Being a witness to this emergence, emerging love or reality or divinity or however

642
00:48:56.925 –> 00:49:00.145
you want to call it, that seems to be really important.

643
00:49:01.105 –> 00:49:08.005
To be a witness, to value, it’s almost like a role that you would have is to

644
00:49:08.005 –> 00:49:13.825
stand right at the edge of all of this begetting and say, this is valuable.

645
00:49:14.025 –> 00:49:17.325
I’m valuing. I’m witnessing and saying this is good.

646
00:49:17.985 –> 00:49:20.985
Or I’m getting I mean yeah there’s a value that it’s like witnessing with

647
00:49:20.985 –> 00:49:23.885
a verb I would agree I mean I

648
00:49:23.885 –> 00:49:27.605
guess for me a lot of this comes from navigating my

649
00:49:27.605 –> 00:49:30.625
own experiences with things like meaning and value and being able

650
00:49:30.625 –> 00:49:33.385
to now compare and contrast so I’ve I’ve done this

651
00:49:33.385 –> 00:49:37.465
thing I’ve seen I you know I’ve done this thing a certain way I’ve seen the

652
00:49:37.465 –> 00:49:40.605
world from this perspective how did that turn out how did that affect my flourishing

653
00:49:40.605 –> 00:49:44.445
how did that affect the flourishing of people around me etc and I’ve gone through

654
00:49:44.445 –> 00:49:47.985
a number of iterations of that so then you can and start to look for the patterns

655
00:49:47.985 –> 00:49:51.365
that hold across those differences and then say, hey,

656
00:49:51.645 –> 00:49:54.345
there’s definitely more in

657
00:49:54.345 –> 00:49:58.705
sort of this basic kind of positive-negative valence thing going on here.

658
00:49:58.885 –> 00:50:01.965
Like this leads to this and this leads to that.

659
00:50:02.325 –> 00:50:06.045
And so trying to make sense of all that is valuable.

660
00:50:06.405 –> 00:50:10.425
And then also trying to help other people navigate that is very valuable to

661
00:50:10.425 –> 00:50:12.165
me. Because it gives you joy.

662
00:50:12.765 –> 00:50:14.665
Say again? It gives you joy.

663
00:50:15.485 –> 00:50:18.825
Sure. Yeah. And I would count in joy as part of that flourishing bit.

664
00:50:18.905 –> 00:50:21.525
I think that that’s the ultimate talos.

665
00:50:21.765 –> 00:50:29.645
Yeah. For me, joy is a sense of experiential wholeness, both in the present

666
00:50:29.645 –> 00:50:33.705
moment, but looking forward and anticipating more wholeness and more wholeness.

667
00:50:34.285 –> 00:50:37.625
And that’s one of the things that I find attractive to your podcast.

668
00:50:39.204 –> 00:50:46.764
Is that there’s a joy for you in the earth, unearthing the values of your own

669
00:50:46.764 –> 00:50:51.284
values, values of others, finding meta values, the concentric circles of values.

670
00:50:51.404 –> 00:50:56.084
There’s a joy that that I think was what people are responding to even more than your ideas.

671
00:50:56.144 –> 00:51:01.004
Because if you were just reading in a drone kind of monotonous and had no Ilan

672
00:51:01.004 –> 00:51:05.504
Vital that’s transmitted, people would not be interested in your words or books

673
00:51:05.504 –> 00:51:06.784
or whatever. ever. Yeah.

674
00:51:06.964 –> 00:51:10.844
I mean, so that goes both ways as well. I do think that that’s true because

675
00:51:10.844 –> 00:51:15.624
people are looking for how does this show up for someone? Is this pleasant?

676
00:51:15.784 –> 00:51:20.164
Do I enjoy this? Is there an infectious quality of when I see someone doing

677
00:51:20.164 –> 00:51:23.044
something that they enjoy, that I enjoy that? All that’s there.

678
00:51:23.184 –> 00:51:28.744
We look for that every time we’re looking for cues about what is the significance of something to us.

679
00:51:28.884 –> 00:51:33.344
The downside of that is you can also find people who are also joyful about things

680
00:51:33.344 –> 00:51:37.624
that are, I would say, not optimal for our understanding and our collective

681
00:51:37.624 –> 00:51:38.944
flourishing together, right?

682
00:51:39.284 –> 00:51:43.224
And you can also then bring in a lot of people just by putting on a big smile

683
00:51:43.224 –> 00:51:48.944
and getting up on stage and singing songs and then bringing people into an ideology

684
00:51:48.944 –> 00:51:53.444
or a religious framework that’s actually really harmful and pathological for

685
00:51:53.444 –> 00:51:55.584
them. So I don’t think it’s just joy.

686
00:51:55.784 –> 00:52:01.264
I do think it’s like that joy has to relate to… I will say this, I guess, like.

687
00:52:02.142 –> 00:52:06.402
Because meaning and value, if they are in alignment with reality,

688
00:52:06.682 –> 00:52:10.802
and that whole thing is producing a kind of reciprocal opening and transformation

689
00:52:10.802 –> 00:52:16.662
and development, learning, et cetera, then that will be experienced as joy,

690
00:52:16.902 –> 00:52:20.342
as positive valence, as the opening.

691
00:52:20.682 –> 00:52:25.722
And so that’s usually a very good sign that someone is finding something that

692
00:52:25.722 –> 00:52:31.262
is moving them in the direction that we are, I think, collectively all looking for in our own way.

693
00:52:31.262 –> 00:52:36.142
But let me say this right here, because you’re saying, I agree with you,

694
00:52:36.202 –> 00:52:39.542
and I think that there’s an er joy there too.

695
00:52:39.742 –> 00:52:44.922
And here’s what I mean by that, is let’s say you and I would share a similar,

696
00:52:45.102 –> 00:52:49.642
I think we do, a similar history that we were very conservative Christians at

697
00:52:49.642 –> 00:52:52.462
one point, in our own little rigid ways, huh?

698
00:52:52.462 –> 00:52:58.002
And maybe if I’ve had mystical, joyful experiences inside of that,

699
00:52:58.102 –> 00:53:01.622
looking back, I can see it as a lot of dopamine hits.

700
00:53:02.182 –> 00:53:06.122
You know what I mean? I mean, it was also a belonging to a community.

701
00:53:06.142 –> 00:53:10.162
It was all the light and the shadow that different belief systems have.

702
00:53:11.222 –> 00:53:20.002
And then if we’re doing our work, we move from the order box into the disorder or deconstruction box.

703
00:53:20.402 –> 00:53:24.862
And people can spend their whole life there. And that’s dangerous because it’s

704
00:53:24.862 –> 00:53:28.402
hard to be there all the time. You want to eventually move into the reorder.

705
00:53:28.542 –> 00:53:34.602
But I think part of the reorder and the reconstruction of one’s worldview that

706
00:53:34.602 –> 00:53:37.622
has meaning and all of the stuff that you and I talk about,

707
00:53:37.722 –> 00:53:44.622
is going to see that a past moments of joy don’t have to be hated on.

708
00:53:46.019 –> 00:53:51.399
You know, I don’t have to look at my Catholic apologist epic of my life and

709
00:53:51.399 –> 00:53:55.519
say, God, dude, you were looking for belonging and, you know,

710
00:53:55.539 –> 00:53:59.599
there was a lot of good things that came out of that. Let me grow roots.

711
00:54:00.659 –> 00:54:04.759
And then when that didn’t work anymore, it led me to deconstruction.

712
00:54:05.079 –> 00:54:09.319
So I can honor that too. So moments of joy in the past, and then my present

713
00:54:09.319 –> 00:54:15.179
joy that I’m feeling is, my present joy is experience because I’m including,

714
00:54:15.399 –> 00:54:17.819
I’m including and then transcending.

715
00:54:17.919 –> 00:54:22.319
It’s almost the opposite of maybe what Ken Wilber would say is you transcend then include.

716
00:54:22.839 –> 00:54:27.759
I’m trying to say you include it and that is transcending.

717
00:54:29.279 –> 00:54:34.179
Yeah, I wouldn’t, you know, depending on how one parses all that,

718
00:54:34.239 –> 00:54:36.739
there’s certainly a way that I could say yes to that.

719
00:54:36.759 –> 00:54:41.739
There is also, you know, there is the The joy, maybe, again,

720
00:54:41.839 –> 00:54:46.379
this is all… Joy being Hitler in Germany and… Well, yeah, I know.

721
00:54:46.439 –> 00:54:50.479
I mean, I think of like the six-year-old boy with a BB gun going out to the

722
00:54:50.479 –> 00:54:52.059
swamp and shooting frogs, right?

723
00:54:52.159 –> 00:54:55.899
Like maybe there’s a kind of joy in that. And then later on, you look back on that.

724
00:54:56.079 –> 00:54:59.219
And I didn’t do that, I’m just saying. But like we all have those kinds of things.

725
00:54:59.579 –> 00:55:04.219
That when we were young, we were like, oh man, and hopefully we do because it

726
00:55:04.219 –> 00:55:07.399
shows that we’ve grown and we’ve developed. And so…

727
00:55:08.399 –> 00:55:14.359
Those are our ways of being that I think we actually, we do ourselves a service

728
00:55:14.359 –> 00:55:21.119
by being able to move beyond and then in retrospect, account for as being maybe

729
00:55:21.119 –> 00:55:22.879
necessary. Necessary integration.

730
00:55:23.459 –> 00:55:27.619
You don’t have to, you know, it’s good to start at early stages of spirituality,

731
00:55:27.879 –> 00:55:29.659
but very dangerous to stay there.

732
00:55:29.919 –> 00:55:34.459
Right. So yeah, the only, the only thing about some of the transcend and include

733
00:55:34.459 –> 00:55:36.839
or include and transcend languaging that can sometimes,

734
00:55:37.139 –> 00:55:42.419
I feel like, miss some important developmental movement or a dynamic of the

735
00:55:42.419 –> 00:55:47.699
movement is that there is real change there as well. We’re not always including everything.

736
00:55:48.479 –> 00:55:51.439
There’s not a way that I, let’s say I did do that when I was a kid,

737
00:55:51.479 –> 00:55:53.519
and I still have that as part of me.

738
00:55:53.619 –> 00:55:57.239
So every six weeks, I take the BB gun out and I go to the swamp,

739
00:55:57.319 –> 00:56:00.739
and that’s to ensure that I can integrate that part of myself.

740
00:56:01.199 –> 00:56:05.419
It’s like, there’s a way, Wilbur talks about this in The Religion of Tomorrow,

741
00:56:05.579 –> 00:56:08.259
where he uses the metaphor of a ladder.

742
00:56:08.479 –> 00:56:13.859
And in order to go up the ladder, you have to include every rung that came before.

743
00:56:14.299 –> 00:56:18.679
But as you move up that ladder, your view is actually changing, right?

744
00:56:18.799 –> 00:56:22.779
Your view is not the conglomeration of all the views that came before.

745
00:56:23.059 –> 00:56:27.259
By the time you’re at the eighth rung, it’s a very different view than when

746
00:56:27.259 –> 00:56:28.399
you’re onto the second rung.

747
00:56:28.539 –> 00:56:31.579
And so there is some genuinely real change and transformation

748
00:56:31.579 –> 00:56:34.819
that happens as we move up even as we can also allow for

749
00:56:34.819 –> 00:56:37.819
the idea that like we do that by means of building up

750
00:56:37.819 –> 00:56:40.699
these earlier sentiments or set sentiments so

751
00:56:40.699 –> 00:56:43.839
anyway i mean again this is maybe this is you know pedantry

752
00:56:43.839 –> 00:56:46.639
parsing things well no you’re picking up

753
00:56:46.639 –> 00:56:50.399
what i’m saying here because that’s process yeah that’s

754
00:56:50.399 –> 00:56:53.619
going to the p process and what

755
00:56:53.619 –> 00:56:56.619
i would like to do is maybe think about it

756
00:56:56.619 –> 00:56:59.639
of we’re on the ladder but the ladder is a spiral

757
00:56:59.639 –> 00:57:02.679
and so the view is much more expansive

758
00:57:02.679 –> 00:57:05.819
we can see further around but if we’re

759
00:57:05.819 –> 00:57:10.459
looking down we’ll see the concentric circle yeah so that’s sort of how i do

760
00:57:10.459 –> 00:57:16.899
the both end there yeah i like that metanoia is is concentric circles is getting

761
00:57:16.899 –> 00:57:23.439
bigger and bigger that can see let’s say if i go i don’t believe and i don’t like I like hunting,

762
00:57:23.499 –> 00:57:25.779
but most of the people I know in Texas hunt.

763
00:57:25.899 –> 00:57:28.079
And I don’t think it’s terrible either.

764
00:57:28.579 –> 00:57:34.059
But at the same time, I have no desire to do that. And I used to when I was a kid.

765
00:57:34.199 –> 00:57:36.619
I never really liked it, but I mean, what else are you going to do in Texas?

766
00:57:36.679 –> 00:57:37.919
Play baseball, football, and hunt.

767
00:57:39.628 –> 00:57:48.028
The way I see that in myself now is the experience of being in nature and the

768
00:57:48.028 –> 00:57:53.268
experience of being in the community of other guys,

769
00:57:53.548 –> 00:57:56.888
mostly it was guys, that were hunting and all of that stuff.

770
00:57:57.188 –> 00:58:02.228
Those were pretty cool things, man. The time I got to spend with my dad at that

771
00:58:02.228 –> 00:58:04.688
point, we didn’t have a whole lot of communication.

772
00:58:05.628 –> 00:58:09.328
And when I talk to people today who are avid hunters, I mean,

773
00:58:09.348 –> 00:58:14.268
addicted to it, you know, is it really they’re addicted to the adrenaline of killing something?

774
00:58:14.848 –> 00:58:22.068
I don’t think so. Not the people I talk to. I don’t care how gun NRA and all of this stuff they are.

775
00:58:22.168 –> 00:58:27.928
It’s they go hunting, especially men, because there’s a primal connection to,

776
00:58:28.968 –> 00:58:31.748
liminal space where they don’t have to be something.

777
00:58:32.028 –> 00:58:37.768
They can just be one with the nature, connect with other, other people.

778
00:58:37.868 –> 00:58:41.248
And there’s probably a lot of drinking, but you know, that serves to kind of

779
00:58:41.248 –> 00:58:45.508
soften the edges in a, in a world that you can’t be soft, you know?

780
00:58:46.048 –> 00:58:49.168
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think probably a lot of sports, uh,

781
00:58:49.448 –> 00:58:53.908
solidarity is a similar sort of thing. It’s not, um, I mean,

782
00:58:53.908 –> 00:58:56.888
I mean, most, I guess I’d be, yeah, like that’s the really.

783
00:58:58.146 –> 00:59:02.306
That’s the charitable reading of a lot of collective rituals that we do is that

784
00:59:02.306 –> 00:59:06.266
it’s not the ostensible thing, you know, on the surface, it’s actually the occasion

785
00:59:06.266 –> 00:59:09.886
and the context and the relationships that get formed in the deeper psychological

786
00:59:09.886 –> 00:59:11.186
bonding and all that stuff.

787
00:59:11.286 –> 00:59:15.706
So I’m going to circle back because trusting the process is something that ships approach people.

788
00:59:15.846 –> 00:59:20.166
We need to get really comfortable in ourselves is that we’re on a developmental role.

789
00:59:20.266 –> 00:59:23.746
And I think that’s one of your greatest gifts is that you are a student,

790
00:59:23.806 –> 00:59:30.106
a life student, and therefore a great teacher of these different maps of consciousness, you know?

791
00:59:30.186 –> 00:59:36.846
And I like the metamodern impulse here because it doesn’t feel as dogmatic.

792
00:59:37.006 –> 00:59:38.066
And this is my bias, maybe.

793
00:59:38.706 –> 00:59:43.206
Dogmatic is, say, the yellow level in spiral dynamics or the integral.

794
00:59:43.526 –> 00:59:45.406
And I’m not throwing any of those out of the bus.

795
00:59:45.766 –> 00:59:51.406
It feels to me as a layman looking at metamodern is that we’re all trying to,

796
00:59:51.406 –> 00:59:57.906
If we are literally in the process of understanding what process might look like.

797
00:59:59.126 –> 01:00:04.766
Yeah, I like that. That’s pretty meta. We’re all walking ourselves home to arm

798
01:00:04.766 –> 01:00:07.246
and arm in whatever telos this is leading.

799
01:00:07.346 –> 01:00:09.986
But it’s probably going to be something like wholeness. It’s leading us somewhere,

800
01:00:10.166 –> 01:00:12.746
even if it’s just right in the immediacy of the now.

801
01:00:13.806 –> 01:00:17.326
And then we’re awakening to it. So process, inside of process,

802
01:00:17.666 –> 01:00:24.806
I kind of lump some of these things like understanding someone’s psychological development,

803
01:00:25.186 –> 01:00:29.786
someone’s spiritual development, Fowler is helpful in this, the stages of faith.

804
01:00:29.986 –> 01:00:33.046
I also find I do a lot of training on the Enneagram,

805
01:00:33.366 –> 01:00:37.286
but when I do the training of the Enneagram, the first half of that presentation

806
01:00:37.286 –> 01:00:45.346
is always going to be about what does it look like to begin at a pretty rigid dualistic ego state?

807
01:00:45.566 –> 01:00:48.126
And then what does it, how does it feel and look like to become,

808
01:00:48.286 –> 01:00:54.826
how does metanoia track for a two or a five or a three?

809
01:00:56.229 –> 01:01:01.929
And so I have a whole way to talk about the Enneagram that honors the developmental stages.

810
01:01:02.129 –> 01:01:04.249
It’s in the act of becoming, you see.

811
01:01:05.549 –> 01:01:11.009
So process, not only do we come from a process and society is in a process,

812
01:01:11.249 –> 01:01:15.309
I think the, for example, the Bible that Christians use,

813
01:01:15.589 –> 01:01:20.189
if you take the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian scriptures all together,

814
01:01:20.429 –> 01:01:25.149
I’m borrowing from Richard Rohr, I think he was standing on the shoulders of

815
01:01:25.149 –> 01:01:27.969
others, but you can see almost a text in travail.

816
01:01:29.329 –> 01:01:36.209
Humans awakening to the nature of an I thou that mirrored the developmental

817
01:01:36.209 –> 01:01:38.129
consciousness level early on.

818
01:01:38.649 –> 01:01:42.109
You’ve written on this, I think too, you know, and then you have a slow,

819
01:01:42.189 –> 01:01:47.889
it’s almost three steps forward and then two steps back and then a three forward and two steps back.

820
01:01:47.889 –> 01:01:53.509
And by the end, you get something like the nature of God is kenosis,

821
01:01:53.869 –> 01:01:56.409
self-emptying vulnerability,

822
01:01:56.829 –> 01:02:02.929
the power of the cross, the folly of the cross, that resurrection necessitates

823
01:02:02.929 –> 01:02:10.589
dying, that the resurrected body, the perfected body, say, has scars that never healed.

824
01:02:10.589 –> 01:02:17.069
How do we understand that kind of wholeness when we are putting it together

825
01:02:17.069 –> 01:02:22.309
with a God that demands purity or smiting enemies?

826
01:02:22.909 –> 01:02:28.749
Well, it’s not that the Hebrew, it’s all one text that shows the three steps

827
01:02:28.749 –> 01:02:32.589
forward and two steps back of human consciousness in some way.

828
01:02:33.289 –> 01:02:37.189
I find that to be true on the individual level too.

829
01:02:37.189 –> 01:02:44.189
And so process, understanding the process is something that is immediately freeing

830
01:02:44.189 –> 01:02:48.149
of not needing to be perfect right now, because I’m walking the journey and

831
01:02:48.149 –> 01:02:50.129
the whole point is to walk together.

832
01:02:51.069 –> 01:02:57.929
And then lastly, service. And I got to tell you, this is a big one because core

833
01:02:57.929 –> 01:03:02.709
spiritual traditions often have some kind of level of service inside of them, you know?

834
01:03:02.709 –> 01:03:10.329
But even psychology in the past 10 years has really studied the efficacy of

835
01:03:10.329 –> 01:03:17.649
inviting clients to do service as a part of their psychological interventions

836
01:03:17.649 –> 01:03:22.329
to help them deal with depression or anxiety or lack of motivation.

837
01:03:22.909 –> 01:03:29.309
And it is as effective in some ways as other things like antidepressants or

838
01:03:29.309 –> 01:03:32.349
different kinds of modes of talk therapy.

839
01:03:32.709 –> 01:03:38.269
Just getting someone to be accountable to the counselor and to themselves of

840
01:03:38.269 –> 01:03:43.529
doing some kind of loving service beyond the transactional, you know,

841
01:03:43.549 –> 01:03:47.749
I’m going to do this so you’re going to do that, beyond the transactional service.

842
01:03:48.802 –> 01:03:54.182
Is itself a tool to help people feel better?

843
01:03:55.122 –> 01:03:58.442
And maybe you and I would say, yeah, that’s absolutely common.

844
01:03:58.542 –> 01:04:00.622
It’s common sense. But look what you’re doing.

845
01:04:00.802 –> 01:04:04.522
I mean, it would be an interesting study if you were to invite people who are

846
01:04:04.522 –> 01:04:09.022
wanting to participate in your Sky Meadow experiment where they come out and

847
01:04:09.022 –> 01:04:10.482
they stay with you, but then they work,

848
01:04:10.582 –> 01:04:13.782
like a before and after kind of conversations

849
01:04:13.782 –> 01:04:17.742
as to how do they feel more integrated or something like that.

850
01:04:17.742 –> 01:04:20.522
My guess is that there’s going

851
01:04:20.522 –> 01:04:23.942
to be a sense of a gestalt adding all these

852
01:04:23.942 –> 01:04:26.902
things that i’ve done doesn’t equal how i’m

853
01:04:26.902 –> 01:04:33.162
experiencing reality right it’s bigger than that what do you think yeah i i

854
01:04:33.162 –> 01:04:40.442
do think i mean certainly certainly service is i’ll put it this way i guess

855
01:04:40.442 –> 01:04:46.182
the the depression that I think a lot of people are experiencing can, I think,

856
01:04:46.202 –> 01:04:48.722
directly be related to the meaning crisis,

857
01:04:48.922 –> 01:04:53.362
lack of meaning, lack of a sense of appreciation for the reality of value.

858
01:04:54.422 –> 01:05:01.062
And so, I mean, when you just try to throw certain kinds of medications at that,

859
01:05:01.102 –> 01:05:05.322
for a lot of the population, that’s actually not, that’s going to be maybe not

860
01:05:05.322 –> 01:05:07.562
even treating the symptom, let alone the cause.

861
01:05:09.183 –> 01:05:14.123
And so there’s something obviously much deeper there that’s at the psychological, social level.

862
01:05:14.203 –> 01:05:21.483
And a big aspect of that is, yeah, we are isolated, alienated from one another.

863
01:05:21.783 –> 01:05:28.663
And so I think whenever you bring back to people’s attention the importance

864
01:05:28.663 –> 01:05:34.063
of connection, community, being responsible for other people,

865
01:05:34.183 –> 01:05:36.723
for caring about other people, all these things, right?

866
01:05:36.723 –> 01:05:41.263
You’re inherently going to be returning a sense of meaning and value to people’s lives.

867
01:05:41.463 –> 01:05:46.563
And then that is, I think, for many people, going to have a reciprocal opening

868
01:05:46.563 –> 01:05:50.083
effect because this will be the thing that people have been missing,

869
01:05:50.203 –> 01:05:50.903
what they’ve been lacking.

870
01:05:52.283 –> 01:05:57.103
And of course, one always has to make room allowance for, there are cases where

871
01:05:57.103 –> 01:05:59.683
there are just chemical imbalances. Of course, yeah.

872
01:05:59.823 –> 01:06:05.683
But I don’t think that the kind of collective cultural malaise and meaning crisis

873
01:06:05.683 –> 01:06:10.963
and sense some sort of cultural depression that I think a lot of people are experiencing is that.

874
01:06:11.303 –> 01:06:17.263
I just saw a graph of the number of minutes a day that people spend with friends,

875
01:06:17.363 –> 01:06:20.683
and it’s shocking. I mean, it’s depressing. It’s awful.

876
01:06:21.163 –> 01:06:24.743
It’s just this precipitous decline. And of course, one can interpret something

877
01:06:24.743 –> 01:06:26.023
like that multiple ways, whether

878
01:06:26.023 –> 01:06:30.083
that has to be in person or even just in kind of communication with.

879
01:06:30.263 –> 01:06:35.823
But we are, yeah, becoming more isolated, alienated, and sort of.

880
01:06:36.603 –> 01:06:39.423
Removed from the very things that give us meaning

881
01:06:39.423 –> 01:06:42.103
and value so bringing in service in an

882
01:06:42.103 –> 01:06:45.923
intentional way is like an obvious

883
01:06:45.923 –> 01:06:50.203
kind of medicine you could say but also you know it’s it’s the medicine we need

884
01:06:50.203 –> 01:06:54.203
at so many levels at both the psychological level but also the collective level

885
01:06:54.203 –> 01:07:01.123
because we have a society that is no longer rendering acts of service to each

886
01:07:01.123 –> 01:07:04.363
other so the whole of fabric is sort of eroded there.

887
01:07:04.523 –> 01:07:09.823
And then we, I guess, are expected to rely upon the state or something to fill the gaps.

888
01:07:09.923 –> 01:07:13.363
And then when it doesn’t, or when it’s incompetent, or when there’s not enough

889
01:07:13.363 –> 01:07:17.283
money or whatever the thing is, the excuses that isn’t solving the problem,

890
01:07:17.463 –> 01:07:19.183
people get bitter and resentful.

891
01:07:19.303 –> 01:07:23.983
And then, you know, and it’s just this kind of negative building on negative. So totally agree.

892
01:07:24.223 –> 01:07:30.383
Yeah. I think it’s a question of we just get a little little flabby in some of our ways to be human.

893
01:07:30.563 –> 01:07:36.103
And here’s what I have found is all of what you’ve said, especially young adults

894
01:07:36.103 –> 01:07:39.503
spending a lot of time online.

895
01:07:40.023 –> 01:07:44.003
And although there have been good connections, people are making connections

896
01:07:44.003 –> 01:07:48.863
in some of the ways that are satisfying to them, forming relationships,

897
01:07:49.343 –> 01:07:52.023
doing video games and working together.

898
01:07:52.883 –> 01:07:58.703
At the same time, there is something to be said about embodiment and being in the presence of others.

899
01:08:00.163 –> 01:08:06.463
And here’s the thing, though, that’s so freeing for people is somebody maybe

900
01:08:06.463 –> 01:08:12.143
who’s 25 and almost has very few friends and very few opportunities to even

901
01:08:12.143 –> 01:08:13.803
connect with other people embodied,

902
01:08:14.203 –> 01:08:18.843
once they can pick one person, so I’m always very particular,

903
01:08:19.163 –> 01:08:23.303
you know, I’ll be like, okay, how about between now and next week when we see

904
01:08:23.303 –> 01:08:26.703
each other, what is one person in your life that you might be able to do something

905
01:08:26.703 –> 01:08:29.223
extra beyond transactional.

906
01:08:29.643 –> 01:08:33.883
And they name that person and they name what they’re going to do very specifically.

907
01:08:34.583 –> 01:08:37.523
And then I’m going to say, I’m so excited to hear you say that because that’s

908
01:08:37.523 –> 01:08:40.223
the first thing I’m going to ask you is how that experience was for you.

909
01:08:40.683 –> 01:08:45.363
How did it help you? So I’m couching it in positive terms because I’m enthusiastic

910
01:08:45.363 –> 01:08:48.023
to hear the results because it’s always positive.

911
01:08:48.563 –> 01:08:51.643
And what ends up happening is just that

912
01:08:51.643 –> 01:08:54.663
one little act is is like they

913
01:08:54.663 –> 01:08:57.483
start flexing a muscle that that was always

914
01:08:57.483 –> 01:09:03.363
there but maybe a little little weak a little latent you know but it doesn’t

915
01:09:03.363 –> 01:09:07.763
you don’t have to go back and live 25 years to get it strong it’s as if once

916
01:09:07.763 –> 01:09:12.383
you just tap it it’s as if it just starts growing and then the person themself

917
01:09:12.383 –> 01:09:16.723
this is the whole point of counseling by the way, the person themselves starts to say,

918
01:09:16.883 –> 01:09:20.443
oh, the more I do for others,

919
01:09:20.743 –> 01:09:24.963
the more that I turn this off, social media, whatever it is,

920
01:09:25.043 –> 01:09:28.363
and be in the presence of others, the better I feel.

921
01:09:28.703 –> 01:09:31.343
Well, shoot, I’m going to do it.

922
01:09:31.943 –> 01:09:37.443
And so it’s almost an immediate way for them to realize that they’ve been holding

923
01:09:37.443 –> 01:09:40.503
their hand on fire for all these

924
01:09:40.503 –> 01:09:44.123
years, not knowing that they have the the power to take off the hand.

925
01:09:44.823 –> 01:09:49.603
And so the human nature by nature, because we’re all cells in one body to use

926
01:09:49.603 –> 01:09:53.523
a Christian term or all somehow interconnected relational from the very beginning.

927
01:09:54.906 –> 01:09:59.446
This is so natural for us that if we could just activate that little muscle,

928
01:09:59.626 –> 01:10:04.106
then it starts to almost rearrange our way to navigate.

929
01:10:05.126 –> 01:10:10.606
Whereas what used to give us anxiety all of a sudden fits inside of this is

930
01:10:10.606 –> 01:10:12.706
just how it is to be human.

931
01:10:13.046 –> 01:10:19.066
And my insecurities aren’t bad. They’re helping me learn how to heal and examine

932
01:10:19.066 –> 01:10:23.566
things in the past that have happened to me with some mercy. Give us some mercy.

933
01:10:25.226 –> 01:10:29.906
Well, wonderful. I mean, so we’ve gone through now the SHIPS.

934
01:10:30.086 –> 01:10:33.766
We’ve gone through the acronym. We’ve kind of, you’ve touched on each one of

935
01:10:33.766 –> 01:10:35.566
those and kind of unpacked them a bit.

936
01:10:35.666 –> 01:10:39.866
So, you know, thank you very much for that. I hope this gives people a sense

937
01:10:39.866 –> 01:10:43.126
of this, you know, and kind of how it hangs together.

938
01:10:43.626 –> 01:10:47.186
In starting to kind of wrap this up, is there any thing you’d want to throw

939
01:10:47.186 –> 01:10:51.886
into, now that you’ve gone through that, kind of summarize or bring anything else in?

940
01:10:52.306 –> 01:10:54.866
I know, I think you had some more slides too that we didn’t really wind up getting

941
01:10:54.866 –> 01:10:56.566
to. It’s okay. This is the most important.

942
01:10:56.946 –> 01:11:00.626
Yeah. Yeah. So, but yeah, any, anything else to kind of, that you would want

943
01:11:00.626 –> 01:11:03.526
to include in this overview of this?

944
01:11:04.366 –> 01:11:07.626
I would. And it’s simple. Well,

945
01:11:07.746 –> 01:11:11.766
I guess the first thing I’d like to say is if anybody would be interested in

946
01:11:11.766 –> 01:11:19.386
talking about some of these things or are communicating with me in any way, I have two websites.

947
01:11:19.626 –> 01:11:21.866
One is DougScottCounseling.com.

948
01:11:22.306 –> 01:11:29.086
The other one is cosmicchrist.net. That’s where I’ve written so many things

949
01:11:29.086 –> 01:11:33.006
and have a podcast there that I’ve explored a lot of these things.

950
01:11:33.106 –> 01:11:37.706
Also, the esoteric stuff, too. So if you want to fire me as heretical,

951
01:11:37.886 –> 01:11:39.586
then there’s some proof.

952
01:11:40.006 –> 01:11:45.806
But I’d like to say that I’m inviting myself and everybody here.

953
01:11:46.366 –> 01:11:53.126
First off, try this out. Because my guess is that in anybody who’s listening right now,

954
01:11:53.286 –> 01:11:58.406
if you have done something in life and you feel pretty good about it,

955
01:11:58.466 –> 01:12:04.606
you feel like you’re hitting a stride and feeling some sense of, you had a conversation,

956
01:12:04.786 –> 01:12:08.286
you feel really good about it, or you’re writing a book and you feel good about it.

957
01:12:08.366 –> 01:12:13.586
My guess is that it’s going to have gone gone through some act of connecting

958
01:12:13.586 –> 01:12:18.406
at the depths, that’s solidarity, some sense of incarnating hope,

959
01:12:18.626 –> 01:12:22.226
finding the seeds of hope inside of us and growing that.

960
01:12:23.516 –> 01:12:29.296
Some sense of process, certainly developmental, that there’s a baby that grows

961
01:12:29.296 –> 01:12:31.556
up, some kind of idea that grows up.

962
01:12:31.676 –> 01:12:36.636
And lastly, that there was an incarnation of any concepts.

963
01:12:36.696 –> 01:12:41.156
There was an incarnation of a lived experiential reality that is yours,

964
01:12:41.256 –> 01:12:44.776
but if you want to keep it, we incarnate it and give it away.

965
01:12:46.016 –> 01:12:50.576
So that’s what I see you doing. you’re for me and i’ve mentioned this when you

966
01:12:50.576 –> 01:12:57.196
and i talked alone is that your whole project because i get to witness your

967
01:12:57.196 –> 01:13:00.816
witnessing if you will that’s kind of metamodern right witnessing.

968
01:13:02.136 –> 01:13:08.636
Witnessing the witness that you giving to the valuing and all this i sense a

969
01:13:08.636 –> 01:13:13.736
desire that we’re all human we’re all trying to make sense of all of this for

970
01:13:13.736 –> 01:13:16.596
vankey does the same All of your guests have done the same thing.

971
01:13:16.696 –> 01:13:22.156
They’re coming from their own desire to connect and to give people hope in the conversation.

972
01:13:23.256 –> 01:13:26.956
You really do a good job asking questions. You’re entering the view.

973
01:13:27.376 –> 01:13:30.256
Sometimes it’s to walk with them. Sometimes it’s to challenge them.

974
01:13:30.376 –> 01:13:35.976
And that is a gift of yours. huh you’re you’re you acknowledge the process of

975
01:13:35.976 –> 01:13:41.636
things and then lastly the very act it’s almost for you it seems like it’s a

976
01:13:41.636 –> 01:13:46.696
baby that you can’t help but do that is to disseminate this information,

977
01:13:47.536 –> 01:13:51.036
no one’s asking you to do it at first at least now they are because they see

978
01:13:51.036 –> 01:13:54.916
how brilliant you are but it’s more of like you’re doing what is yours to do

979
01:13:54.916 –> 01:13:58.716
there’s a sense of that i’m here to do what but I am here to do.

980
01:13:59.076 –> 01:14:03.016
And you’re writing books and you’re doing interviews and you’re doing conferences.

981
01:14:03.756 –> 01:14:10.296
That’s what I mean. That’s how you keep your embeddedness here in this earth

982
01:14:10.296 –> 01:14:17.596
going by continuing to serve and give people opportunity into dialogue with

983
01:14:17.596 –> 01:14:20.016
you. Well, I think everybody is doing this.

984
01:14:20.476 –> 01:14:22.496
I’m just asking us to do it intentionally.

985
01:14:24.524 –> 01:14:26.864
Well, thank you for that. I really appreciate that. And clearly,

986
01:14:26.924 –> 01:14:33.224
this is your version of that, of reflecting on these processes,

987
01:14:33.344 –> 01:14:37.364
as you said, and then trying to find ways to help people, to be of service to

988
01:14:37.364 –> 01:14:39.884
people by becoming consciously aware of them.

989
01:14:39.964 –> 01:14:44.984
And then in the process, of course, being able to get better at it by knowing

990
01:14:44.984 –> 01:14:48.704
what the different steps, what the different movements are.

991
01:14:49.164 –> 01:14:53.724
So thank you for that. And on the point of asking questions, I appreciate that.

992
01:14:53.844 –> 01:14:58.264
I almost feel like I didn’t ask you very good questions this round because there’s

993
01:14:58.264 –> 01:15:03.744
something about the slide element of it sort of like giving you more like presentation mode status.

994
01:15:04.224 –> 01:15:06.604
I mean, I didn’t want to kind of interrupt your flow too much,

995
01:15:06.664 –> 01:15:10.584
but I appreciate you in some ways asking me the questions so that we could…

996
01:15:10.584 –> 01:15:13.264
Oh, I’m so glad you didn’t ask me questions because you’re so intelligent.

997
01:15:13.364 –> 01:15:15.524
I’d be like, oh my God, I don’t know how to answer. No.

998
01:15:16.724 –> 01:15:19.424
I like talking. But you’re You’re right, though.

999
01:15:19.484 –> 01:15:26.744
I think everyone that I want to bring on and have conversations with on this

1000
01:15:26.744 –> 01:15:31.304
podcast are doing some form of that, and yourself included, is trying to share

1001
01:15:31.304 –> 01:15:33.284
these things and be of service to people.

1002
01:15:33.504 –> 01:15:38.244
So I hope this is valuable to folks and is of service to them.

1003
01:15:38.324 –> 01:15:42.904
And as Doug said, check out his stuff. And I assume get in touch with you,

1004
01:15:42.944 –> 01:15:46.464
it sounds like, if people are interested to learn more about this. Happy. Cool.

1005
01:15:47.324 –> 01:15:50.964
Wonderful. Well, Doug Scott, thank you so much. Much appreciated.

1006
01:15:51.044 –> 01:15:52.044
Thank you for taking the time.

1007
01:15:52.244 –> 01:15:56.104
And this graphic has been up the whole time, so I think it’ll be etched in people’s

1008
01:15:56.104 –> 01:16:00.304
memory indelibly from now on. So the ship’s process.

1009
01:16:00.584 –> 01:16:04.144
What would you call this? The ship’s method? The ship’s… I just call it the ship’s approach.

1010
01:16:04.544 –> 01:16:07.904
The ship’s approach. Oh, yeah. The whole word there. But you know what?

1011
01:16:07.924 –> 01:16:11.244
It was under the surface, so I didn’t see it. See, it’s always hidden under the surface.

1012
01:16:12.144 –> 01:16:14.804
All right. Great. Thank you so much, Scott. Really appreciate it.

1013
01:16:14.844 –> 01:16:15.524
You’re welcome. God bless.

• Cosmic Christ